


Eight Minutes to the Sun

by LetheSomething



Series: Godbook [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Culture Shock, Fish out of Water, M/M, Medium Burn, Mythology - Freeform, Pining, Roommates, Sexual Tension, Shenanigans, Time Travel, Weird god au, rated m for eventual sexytimes, sorta - Freeform, technically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-04-25 20:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14386806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetheSomething/pseuds/LetheSomething
Summary: «So all we have to do is summon the dead and ask them to knock it off. That's your plan? That's thewholeplan?»Sugawara gets pulled into a convoluted plot to break a deadly curse.Since Oikawa and Kuroo thought of it, it obviously doesn't go well.What follows is a reluctant adventure in which the young god has to protect his friends from ancient shadows while keeping his job and his sanity, and maybe, just maybe, finding the love of his life.A medium burn DaiSuga romance in which Sugawara has to deal with too much Shenanigans, and Daichi is honestly quite baffled by the concept of a smartphone.





	1. Life and Death in Nagano

**Author's Note:**

> Title blatantly taken from a suggestion by Thekuroiookami.

«So all we have to do is summon the dead and ask them to knock it off. That's your plan? That's the _whole plan_ ?»  
Sugawara Koushi sat back on the couch and rubbed his temples. He could almost feel the stress headache creep up on him, like some kind of cat that was trying to sneak food.  
Not the cute, fluffy kind, either. A really very ugly cat, with like one eye and only half a tail and tufts of fur that had fallen off and been replaced with pure, unadulterated anger.

«Well I don't see what's so hard about this.»  
In his chat tile on Sugawara's laptop, Oikawa Tooru huffed and folded his arms. «We just need to find a death god. There's probably a ton of those. Tetsu?»

«Well I don't know any death gods. Like, personally,» Kuroo Tetsurou said. He leaned into view of his webcam and shrugged. «Just you guys and a bunch of the more nerdy gods. Anansi, also, but he's creepy. We don't hang out much.»  
He adjusted the camera and made a frowny face. It looked like he was at his desk, no doubt grading tests again. «And I'd like to at least get a friend or something. This seems like the kind of thing you can't just bribe some random person to do with tickets to Disneyland.»

Oikawa was silent for a moment.  
«I could offer to curse someone?» he said, sounding hopeful.

«Wouldn't death gods already have, you know, a bunch of curses at their disposal? Isn't Hades more powerful than you?» Sugawara sighed.

«How should I know?» Oikawa said. «Besides, I doubt death gods have any of the _fun_ curses.»

Sugawara shuddered at the implication.  
He, also, didn't personally know any death gods, and he was just fine with that. It was hard enough dealing with Oikawa 'overly dramatic reincarnated sun god' Tooru and the rest of his siblings.  
Mostly Oikawa though.  
«Alright,» Sugawara said. «Let's think this through a little, ok? I can't even begin to list all the reasons why summoning the dead is a terrible idea, so I'd rather we don't just hurl ourselves head-first at this, like Oikawa seeing a hot boy.»

«Or you,» Oikawa huffed.

«I like to think I have more self-discipline than someone who sleeps with a different guy every other night,» Sugawara pointed out, to the squawking 'HA!' of his friend.

«Alright, alright,» Kuroo said. «I'll see if we can find some halfway decent info on this. You off to work?»

«Yes. Night shift again,» Sugawara sighed.

«Well, go be a productive member of society, Su-chan!» Oikawa waved. «I'm going to spend my night going out and meeting people and having actual fun.»  
He poked out his tongue.

 

Shaking his head lightly, Sugawara closed the laptop and got up.  
The smell of freshly brewed coffee came wafting fro his kitchen and he inhaled deeply as he stepped in.

He took the pot from the coffee maker and filled his thermos with it, a cute little travel mug with cartoon turtles on it. Then he walked into the hallway to put on his shoes.

Pocket check: wallet, headphones, phone, deck of cards, coffee.  
All set.  
He gave his empty apartment a final glance, before descending the stairs and stepping out into the warm evening air.

 

It was early July, the height of summer in Nagano.  
People were out and about, licking ice cream and drinking sake or beer or soda on the benches outside cafés. The sky above him was awash in the deep reds and pinks of sunset.  
If he looked west, across the valley, he could just about see the edges of the sun sinking behind the mountains.  
"Bye bye," he whispered softly, "See you in a bit."  
He put in his headphones, turned on his music and hummed softly to a new pop song he'd found as he walked to the bus stop, sipping coffee all the way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Evening, Nakajima-san," he greeted as he entered the staff room at the hospital.  
And then: "Long day?"

Nakajima-san was sagged in a chair, feet up on the table.  
"God, you wouldn't believe," she said. "Three deaths, just on this ward. In one afternoon."

"Damn," Sugawara said, opening his locker and taking off his coat. "Dazai-san?"

"Nope, oddly enough he's still hanging in there."

"Toughie, that one."

She nodded.  
"Anyway, I'm glad you're here, I am _so_ done." She dropped a clipboard onto the table, hitting it with a clatter. "Have a look?"

"Sure."  
Sugawara pulled on his scrubs, while his colleague filled him in on the patients he would be taking care of.  
It seemed like it would be a calm night, at least. The majority of the people on the ward had conditions that were mostly stabilised, and the ones that weren't, well, Nakajima-san and her team seemed to have had to deal with those already.

He sent her off and made the rounds, walking through the halls of the Observation Ward and checking the different rooms, each one carrying humans adorned with tubes and monitoring devices.

Lives became a strange thing once you were in the nursing business for a while, he thought.  
They flitted in and out of existence on a rapid scale, right before your eyes.  
In his place of work, people died every day. People were born every day. People struggled, grappled to hold on, fought with everything they had, while others gave up, smiling softly as they sank into a deep sleep they'd never wake up from.  
It was a short thing, and a difficult thing, a life.  
And Sugawara tried not to think too hard about it, because when he did, he was fairly certain that he was wasting his, and then he'd get sad.

 

So he shrugged it off and set to work. This night was much like any night shift he'd done.  
After doing his rounds, he brought water to the patient in room 316.  
Then he went to replace the drip in room 301.  
He ended up chatting with the patient in 326 about her grand-kids, while carefully rubbing lotion on her needle-wrecked arms.  
At one, he went back to room 316 to help the patient to the bathroom.  
At one thirty, he took a coffee break and talked about tv shows with the security guard.  
And on. And on.  
Until about four in the morning, when he gave the hallway a final check, and set off down the stairs to the basement.

 

It was difficult to find an unused room in a hospital like this, but that didn't mean there weren't any that fit his purposes.  
The place he used most often was a small basement storage room. It was stacked with discarded computers, spare chairs, and old floppy disks.  
Nothing anyone needed early in the morning.

Sugawara slipped in and closed the door behind him. Then he walked into the middle of the room, an empty space cleared of all debris, like a dance floor, and pulled a deck of cards out of his scrubs.  
Through a small window to the east, he could see the night sky turn from dark blue to a lighter shade of pale.  
Around him, the shadows stirred.

Silently, he cut the deck and pulled out twelve cards, dealing them in a circle around him.  
They landed on the tile floor, glowing slightly until the last one fell into place and for a second, the whole circle flashed with a golden light.

In the corner of the room, by the ceiling, darkness was gathering like an ink spot. Before long it started moving, creeping across the popcorn tiles.  
Sugawara flung a card at it.  
It sailed across the room, a flat, golden arrow, and where it struck, the shadow melted apart with an angry hiss.

From underneath a cabinet of old diskettes, a second shadow started to move, an oil spill creeping across the floor until it, too was struck with a golden card.

 

As time went on, more and more of the dark shapes came out of the corners. They drooled from behind the chairs and dripped off the ceiling until finally, at the turning of the sky in the east, they retreated.

"Morning, gorgeous," Sugawara whispered, squinting as the first glimpses of sun peeked above the horizon.  
He threw a last card at a retreating shadow of night, and then he stretched.  
"Another beautiful day, huh?"

He placed the remaining deck flat on his palm and wiggled his fingers, beckoning the cards to come back from wherever they had fallen across the room. They flew to his hand, filling the deck back up.  
The twelve cards forming the magic circle around him were the last to return home, and as soon as they did, the soft glow that had filled the room dimmed, replaced by the light an early morning sun.  
Sugawara carefully placed the deck back in his pocket and, with a pleased hum, left the basement room to return to his patients.

 

This was what Sugawara Koushi did.  
Mild mannered nurse by day (and sometimes night), reincarnation of the sun god Helios by, uh, early morning, mostly.

This second job involved defeating the shadows of night to make sure the sun could rise.  
Dangerous, yes, but someone had to do it, and it did give him some mild perks. The All-Seeing Eye was particularly helpful in poker, for instance.  
Honestly, the hardest part was probably the international set of weird god siblings he now had to worry over.  
But it was nothing he couldn't handle.  
He gave the sun a fond glance while he walked back up the stairs to the Observation Ward.  
"Death gods, huh," he hummed to himself. "What a shitty job that must be."

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Morning Izumi-san, Mori-san." Sugawara smiled when his two colleagues came in for the morning shift.

"Quiet night?" Mori-san asked, taking off her coat.

"Yeah. Just the lady in 311 who had some trouble. I gave her painkillers. It's on the chart."

"Alright."

"Let me just fill out the rest of this and the ward's all yours."  
He ticked off the rest of his paperwork, and then he looked up at the two ladies pulling on their scrubs. "How was the date, Izumi-san?"

The girl turned pink. "Oh, uh… it was… nice? Yes."

"Oh right! Who was it this time? The builder?" Mori-san piped up.  
She sounded a little condescending, in a way that Sugawara would never appreciate. But then Mori had always been a little too proud of the fact that her hubby was a boring old accountant.

Izumi drooped, still blushing.  
“He is, yes.”

"That means he has muscles, Mori-san," Sugawara grinned, handing her a folder of paperwork. “I bet he's sculpted like a marble statue. Izumi has taste.”  
Mori rolled his eyes and left the room.  
“Just because you jumped at the first man willing to put a ring on it,” he muttered.  
This made Izumi snort.  
“Did you have fun, Izumi-san?”

“I did, yes,” she said, and she dropped her voice.  
"He's.…quite strong," she whispered, giggling.

"Good for you, Izumi-chan," Sugawara winked, and he watched her titter as she left the room.  
Smiling to himself, he grabbed his bag and walked down to the showers, where he scrubbed off the night's sweat while trying not to sing too loudly, or too out of tune.  
 

It was only seven thirty, when he stepped out of the hospital and into the summer morning air, but the city was already heating up, a balmy, pleasant sort of warmth that made people sit outside with their breakfast.

He got off the bus and walked through the small streets to his home, occasionally dodging a bicycle and waiting for a car to pass a particularly thin stretch of road.

He'd always kinda liked this street, with its little shops and barbers and tiny restaurants. Even if the complete lack of a side-walk made walking down it in rush hour a dangerous endeavour.  
He passed the flower shop and nodded a hello to the lady behind the counter, then he slid open the wooden grated door of the convenience store.

"Suga! Good morning."  
A tall, long haired man stood stacking newspapers in the cramped aisles.  
He gave the impression that he was too big for this place. Like the whole store was a pair of pants that he'd outgrown years ago.

"Hey Asahi."  
Sugawara walked to the cooler and picked up a smoothie.

"Tough shift?" Asahi asked when he brought it to the counter.

"It was fine," Sugawara shrugged, and he looked up into the mildly worried eyes of his old friend. "No one died, Asahi."

"Oh! No, I didn't mean…" Face heating up, he typed the amount due into the cash register. "It's not like I'm keeping a tally, I just."

"I know." Sugawara smiled encouragingly and pulled out his card.

 

He hummed as he swiped his card, tactfully starting a conversation about the weather.  
Asahi may have the body of a bear, trapped inside that body was the spirit of a baby deer.  
Possibly like a particularly skittish squirrel.  
He'd always been like that. From sweet child to endearing teen to, well, shy adult.  
Growing up in the same neighbourhood, he and Sugawara would play together, and he would scream when they found bugs. That sort of thing.  
They once found a cat that was run over, and Asahi cried for days after.

As they both grew, Asahi's body had become larger, wiry, strong. He had gained a reputation as a gangster from the looks alone.  
But in truth, his spirit had always stayed soft.

Asahi would always be that boy who was afraid of bugs, but willing to shield Sugawara from them.  
In high school, when Sugawara first found out about the whole 'god' thing, Asahi was there to help him figure it out, and to back up his stories so that his weird alternate identity didn't get out.  
He may not have fully understood the god thing then, but Asahi would always be there for him.  
Even if he hated lying, Asahi hated his friends getting in trouble even more.

 

“Oh, I noticed Mrs Shizuka's back from holiday,” Sugawara said, idly picking up the smoothie.

“Yes, she dropped by yesterday. Her daughter's getting married.”

“Oh? That's nice.”

“Mmm.”

“That's the one your mom always said you should marry, right?” Sugawara hummed.

“Mmm.”  
Asahi looked away and brushed his hair behind his ear.

"Whelp, good to see she found someone," Sugawara said. "I think I'll go to bed. Is Nishinoya out?”

"Mm, yeah he went to work," Asahi nodded. “It'll be nice and quiet.

“Good,” Sugawara said. “because if I get woken up again by someone practising dodge rolls or whatever that was yesterday, I swear I will cut a hole in the floor and flood your apartment, and then throw in a toaster.”

Asahi swallowed, startled for a moment. “That's... graphic,” he said.

“I have a lot of time to think about murderous vengeance when I'm lying in bed unable to sleep, Asahi,” Sugawara said darkly, and then he pulled up the most charming smile in his arsenal. “But anyway, I'm off. Have a good day!”

 

Followed by the mildly horrified stare of his old friend, Sugawara stepped behind the counter, through a door in the back of the store.  
From there, he took the stairs, past the first floor where Asahi lived with Nishinoya, up to his own apartment on the second floor.

With a sigh, he threw his bag on the floor next to the front door and took off his shoes.  
He finished his smoothie, closed the blinds, turned on a fan and finally flopped onto the bed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

'Bloop.'  
It was early evening, and Sugawara sat on his couch with a bowl of pork fried rice, vaguely watching a game show. It involved people guessing each other's secrets, which seemed to Sugawara like a bad idea.  
In the chat program on his laptop, Yachi's tile had just flipped on.

"Hi Yachi."

"Suga-san!" she smiled widely. "Good evening!"

"Had a good day?" he asked.

She nodded happily. "I taught class, and then in the afternoon Tadashi and I went shopping."

"Mm, good. Sounds nice."  
He smiled. "Things going OK then?"

"Yes!"

He didn't really need to ask, to be honest. Yachi was practically glowing.  
"Show me?" he said.

She obediently rolled up her sleeve, to reveal what looked like a nasty bruise around her wrist. It was faint, now, but it was still there, a reddish brown pattern on her skin, darker than the rest.  
Teeth marks, or so it seemed.  
"It's faded, mostly, but that last bit is staying put," she said, rubbing her wrist.

Suga eyed his laptop screen critically.  
"Does it hurt?" he asked.

She shook her head.  
“Not really. It feels a little cold sometimes, but that goes away quickly.”

“Mm, good,” Sugawara said, peering at the wound.

 

It had been a month and a half since Yachi, incarnation of Eos, goddess of Dawn and thereby Sugawara's... symbolic little sister, was bitten by the shadows she was fighting.  
The whole situation had made her horrifically ill, and no matter what he and his other siblings tried, they seemed to only be able to slow down the inevitable.  
The bite would sap her energy and turn her into a cold husk, stealing away at her very life day after day.

He was certain she would have died, if they hadn't somehow pulled out the oldest trick in the book at the last minute.  
True Love's Kiss, of all things.  
He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't gotten a first-hand account from Oikawa, who was a theatrical little shit, but not a liar.  
Not about something like this.

So the reason Yachi was doing so well right now, was mostly because of her boyfriend.  
Sugawara was happy for her, really.  
She seemed to be enjoying herself tremendously, and the mark that a month before had crawled all the way up her arm and onto her cheek, had now faded back down to just the original bite.

But it was still there.  
Sugawara didn't like that.  
He wasn't sure if 'true love' ever broke up, but on principal, he wasn't pleased with the idea that Yachi's continued well-being was in the hands of some random boy, even is Yamaguchi Tadashi was a nice enough sort.  
They were going to need a more permanent fix for this.  
And somehow that entailed death gods.  
It pained Sugawara to admit that Oikawa's plan was the best they'd come up with so far.

 

It had all started, as these things unsettlingly often do, with two idiots in a forest.  
And a dead guy in Estonia. But anyway.

The forest in question lay on the slopes of a hill in Kyoto, not too far from Yachi's apartment, and right beneath one of the lesser known shrines.  
It was also haunted, because of course it was.

 

**One month ago**

 

_«By the gods, does your stuff have to be so heavy?» Kuroo grumbled as he adjusted his backpack and walked up the steps to the temple._

_«Oh will you stop whinging for five seconds,» Oikawa huffed._

_«I woke up Super Early for this,» Kuroo whined, unperturbed. «I left my nice, warm husband in a nice comfy hotel bed for this.»_

_Oikawa rolled his eyes and took a right about halfway up the stairs, onto a small path that led into the wooded hill.  
«Yes, yes, poor you,» he muttered. «You know exactly why we're doing this.» _

_«Find out who the big nasty shadow is that bit Yachi, and tell them to knock it off,» Kuroo parroted. «I just don't see why you need me for this. I'm not even a sun god.»_

_«You want me to take Yachi?» Oikawa squawked indignantly._

_«We coulda gotten Suga you know.»_

_«Pfft, he's even whinier than you are,» Oikawa shrugged. «Look. All I need you to do is strengthen the magic circle and take the picture.»_

 

_Squabbling, they made their way to a small clearing in the woods. The ground was mostly dirt and rocks, with some scuff marks here and there. It certainly seemed big enough for a fight.  
«Ok, walk me though this,» Kuroo said. He plopped the backpack down and rubbed his shoulders. _

_«First, we need a circle big enough for the both of us. You do that.»_

_«Uh, sure?» Kuroo opened his jacket and pulled out something that looked suspiciously like a pocket umbrella._  
_Before Oikawa's astonished eyes, he slid the bottom part out until it was about the size of a walking stick, a long wooden rod with two metallic painted snakes winding their way around it._  
_«Watch this,» Kuroo said with a lopsided smile, and he pushed a little button at the top. With a soft 'click', two spokes sprang out of the wood and unfolded into little wings._

_«By the gods,» Oikawa muttered._

_Kuroo waggled his eyebrows. «So cool. Right?» he grinned._

_«You are so fucking extra.»_

_Kuroo pouted. «I don't wanna hear that coming from you, mister 'influencer'.»_

_«I can heard those air quotes!»_

_With a snort, Kuroo set the staff down and started drawing a large circle in the dirt._

_Oikawa rifled through the backpack.  
«So what's gonna happen is, sometime before sunrise these shadows are going to come out and attack us,» he said. _

_«Great! Lovely.»_

_«I will fight them off, no problem. You just stay inside the circle and take pictures of the big one. You should recognize it. Suga said it was way bigger and more… intelligent than the others. That's the one that bit Yachi.»_

_«Right.»_

_Oikawa pulled out a bunch of tripods and started setting them up with camera's.  
«Ok,» he said. «So this one I set to a fairly long exposure time, and auto-shoot.» _

_Kuroo looked up and nodded, finishing his circle. It glowed in a brief flash._

_«So just point it at the thing and push the button and leave it alone.»_

_«Sure.»_

_«This one,» Oikawa said, pulling out a small, weird looking tube, «is the light-field camera. I can sharpen the image later, so just point and click. Even you can do that.»_

_«Your faith in my abilities is truly humbling, Tooru.»_

_«And this,» Oikawa went on, ignoring his friend._

_«That's your iPhone,» Kuroo pointed out._

_«... is my iPhone, with a cool little night-vision lens I picked up somewhere.»_

_«The amount of crap you lug around on a daily basis, is also humbling,» Kuroo noted._

_«I think I'll put this on video, but we're going to be making a bit of light when fighting so I don't know.»_

_«You know I can push more than one button, right?» Kuroo said, rolling his eyes._

_«Fine, fine. Only use the phone camera when it's dark.»_

_«Aye aye. Anything else?»_

_Oikawa checked his watch, nodded and then went back to his backpack. «Just this,» he said, handing Kuroo a small pouch._

_«Sun glasses? Are you kidding me?»_

_Kuroo looked up into Oikawa's blinding smile. On his face was a pair of retro Ray Bans, in his hands a photographer's flash the size of a shoebox._  
_It seemed to glow slightly in the gloom of the forest._  
_«Trust me on that one,» Oikawa grinned._

_He held up the flash and turned it on, waving it in a circle around him.  
The light from it seemed to slow and turn tangible, a syrupy paint that hung in the air for a fraction of a second before it dropped down, onto Kuroo's magic circle, where it glowed briefly. _

 

_In the east, the sky was turning cerulean, and in the forest around them, shadows started to move.  
«Holy shit,» Kuroo said, visibly paling. _

_«Relax, this is normal.»_

_«No it damn well isn't!»_

_A large patch of living shade oozed out from under a nearby bush. Oikawa held up the flash lamp and seemed to draw a ball of light from it, a shimmering, whirling orb that he threw in a move that resembled flicking water from his fingers.  
When it hit, the shadow exploded with a satisfying hiss. _

_«Just focus on the pictures, Kuroo,» Oikawa said. «I have this. Keep an eye out for the big one.»  
He drew a line of light and sent it, like a spear, to a patch of darkness dripping from a nearby branch. _

_«This is probably a good time to mention that I have no frame of reference for when it is a 'big one',» Kuroo said. «These things are terrifying. Are you telling me Yachi, small, cute, ball of fluff Yachi, deals with this on a daily basis? No wonder she's such a nervous wreck.»_

_«She's stronger than you think, messenger boy,» Oikawa said offhandedly, spraying light around like a painter emulating Jackson Pollock._

_«Well maybe you could just tell me when-» Kuroo started, and then he fell silent._

_Oikawa frowned and turned to him._

_«I think I found it,» Kuroo said, pointing at a shape slowly making its way toward them._

_«Ok, wow,» Oikawa said. «Yeah, that'll be it. Get ready.»_

 

_The shadow monster purposefully oozing toward them was unlike any of the others._  
_It was a darkness deeper than black, a whirlwind of madness, somehow more solid, also, than the shadows crawling out of the trees and leaking off the trunks around them._  
_If the shadows of night were ink, flighty and liquid, then this one was clay. Or perhaps more like quicksilver. Viscous. Dangerous. Poisonous._

_And stuck in all that black, at the height of about Kuroo's head, hung a crown, possibly a hunting trophy. The molten remnants of a teal plastic broom, one of Yachi's previous weapons, taken and moulded into wreck of its former self.  
Kuroo gaped at it. _

_«Picture! Take the picture!" Oikawa screamed at him, balling up light and throwing it at the creature._

_«Right.»_

_While Kuroo ran around pushing buttons on all the camera's, Oikawa attacked it with everything he had._  
_With little to no effect, at that._  
_If lesser shadows exploded or disintegrated under Oikawa's spells, this one seemed to absorb them._  
_A ball of light would hit, and with a hiss, a hole would form in the shell, only to be filled just as quickly, a brief dent smoothed over by layer upon layer of darkness protecting itself, like a pebble falling into a lake._  
_It was all Oikawa could do just to keep it at arm's length._

_They battled like this for minutes, until the sun finally made its presence known in a feast of purple and orange and pink._  
_The big shadow, and all its kin, retreated back into the forest, and Oikawa flopped down on the dirt._  
_«Ugh,» he said._

_Kuroo nodded quietly. «Can we go now?»_

_«Yes. Yes let's get the hell out of here. I don't want to get stung by icky dirty bugs.»_

_«Oh THAT's your main issue with this place?»_

 

 _Half an hour later, Kuroo gratefully sank into the back seat of a taxi._  
_«Let's never do that again,» he said and he closed his eyes._  
«You ok?» he asked after a while, when Oikawa stayed uncharacteristically quiet.

_«Mmm,» Oikawa said, flipping through some of the pictures on his phone. «I'm going to have to process these. Most of these are shit.»_

_«Well exCUSE me for panicking when I'm surrounded by those .... things for the first time in my life. I'm so sorry I couldn't make crystal clear pictures in the fucking dark while the forces of fucking darkness were trying to murder us. That big one scared the shit out of me, thankyouverymuch.»_

_«Yeah, that was something else,» Oikawa mumbled._

_«Suga said he'd never seen anything like it,» Kuroo tried._

_«Well neither have I... hey, does this look like a figure to you?»  
He showed Kuroo his phone and pointed to a scene of black and green. _

_«Uhhh?»_

_«There, above the crown thing.»_

_Kuroo squinted at the picture. It was one from the night cam. Mostly a mess of trees, with bits of shrubbery and, shining brightly in the middle of the view, the melted plastic remnants of Yachi's broom._  
_He put on his glasses and peered at the image again, zooming in on the space Oikawa had pointed out._  
_There was something, alright. It was vaguely human, possibly._  
_It could, with a lot of imagination, be a face._  
_A very, very unpleasant one._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sugawara Koushi, on his couch in his apartment in Nagano, clicked open his browser.

'Godbook', it said at the top of his homepage. It was an accompaniment, in part, to the chatroom he spent most of his days in. A heavily secured social network for 'gods'.  
That sounded incredibly classy, but it mostly came down to a bunch of people trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and why they got so many random visions involving frogs (the answer to that particular one, was that they appeared to be the reincarnation of a Ptolemaic frog goddess, obviously).

But the site was nice enough.  
It was how Sugawara had met his siblings, like Apollo and Hermes.  
The network was built by that last one. Kuroo had decided some time ago that being messenger of the gods was all fine and good, but he wasn't going to quit his day job to lug letters around, so he was just gonna make them do the communication thing amongst themselves.  
He had made the site together with a programmer friend of his, called Kenma.  
Apparently Kenma was the reason most of the sounds on the chatroom and the social network involved melodies from Legend of Zelda.

 

Over the years, Godbook had grown into its own thing.  
A few hundred current gods were members, now. Not just from the ancient Greek pantheon, but also Egyptian, Japanese and Mayan gods, and even gods most modern people had never heard of. Ancient protectors of small tribes, guardians of sacred lands and rivers.  
Little gods, with few powers  
Fewer, even, than Sugawara or Yachi.

One of those was a salaryman living in downtown Nagano.  
Sugawara had, several times, pondered whether he should contact the guy or not.  
From his picture, he looked to be a bit strange, but not unattractive.  
Early thirties maybe.  
His mouse hovered again over the name. Might be nice to have someone close to chat with.  
Would it be awkward? It would probably be awkward.  
Knowing Sugawara, he'd get attached too easily, and then the guy would freak out.  
Shaking his head quickly, he clicked away from the profile and went to the section he was actually here for.

 

The 'research section'.  
Because Kuroo was easily talked into adding features, the Godbook network now contained a wealth of information, which included a large database of historical and mythological factoids.  
Nabu, a Mesopotamian literacy god with a knack for finding exactly the document he needed in any pile of books, had been scanning large swaths of the world’s libraries for ‘god stuff’, and dutifully added them to the server.  
He had uploaded ancient diaries, notes and studies from previous incarnations. Some others had also scanned reports from strange events that could possibly be explained by godly intervention, or aliens.  
Probably gods, then. Though Oikawa would no doubt disagree.

It was at the top of this section that Kuroo had pinned the picture he and Oikawa had taken, of the 'big one'. The shadow responsible for Yachi's bite.  
It had been processed and cleaned up to resemble a human face.  
Clearly a young woman, with long dark hair and Asian features.  
And the most horrifyingly angry eyes Sugawara had ever seen. She grimaced, even in the straightened pictures, as if she was in perpetual pain, and blamed every single living being for this.  
She looked murderous, mad. She definitely looked like she would bite you if given the chance.  
Sugawara shuddered and scrolled past her to the discussion board.

 

It was lively, to say the least.

The biggest thread so far was the discussion of a number of reports 'acquired' from a dead guy in Estonia.  
The man had been a doctor and a possible reincarnation of Ra, and he'd spent his life researching the shadows he fought every morning.

His conclusion, before his own death, had been that shadows were dead people, basically.  
Restless spirits somehow still haunting the border between night and dawn.  
This idea had pulled every single known sun god in existence out of the woodwork, and there were a lot of those, and all of them had some opinion or other.  
After all, they were the ones fighting these things every day.  
Several were unwilling to believe that the shadows of night were sentient, or had been, at some point, alive.  
But Sugawara was willing to. Especially after his own encounter with the 'big one'.  
That thing had been far from mindless.  
The thought of it being a tormented spirit was something he could get behind, even if he didn't particularly like the implications.

 

As to who this spirit was, well, the combined knowledge of a number of the more nerdy gods had given them some clues.  
From her facial structure and the way her hair was styled, the spirit inside the shadow was thought, by people more knowledgeable than Sugawara, to be Japanese and of high class.  
Possibly Edo Period or earlier. Probably some kind of shrine maiden.  
And so far, that made sense, since the damn thing lurked near a shrine in Kyoto.

And then Kuroo had come in with his idea that she was a very specific priestess, based on wild speculation, without any evidence whatsoever, and people had somehow gone along with it.  
Sugawara would never understand how the man was that smooth, but the circumstances did seem slightly too coincidental.

According to Kuroo, the woman was an 18th century shrine maiden who had served at the Ise Grand Shrine.  
She showed up in some of the research, because it was said that the shadows would slink away wherever she walked.  
The running theory stated that she was the last known incarnation of Amaterasu, Japanese goddess of the sun.  
The poor woman had died together with most of the shrine staff, in some undisclosed incident that left the shrine unused for decades.

 

It was this woman that Oikawa was hell-bent on summoning.  
Somehow.  
By employing a death god.  
Which was a _fabulous_ idea, surely, Sugawara thought.

A small bleep announced a new participant to the chat room.  
He switched over to find Oikawa smiling brilliantly at his camera.

«Su-chan! Ya-chan! You're going to love me.»

«Am I?» Sugawara said.

«Of course, you already do, but you're going to love me more.»

«What did you do,» Sugawara sighed.

«I found one.»

«Found what, exactly?»

«A death god! Well sorta. I knew I had met someone like that before, and it just came back to me! There's a dude in Paris who is some kind of Cerberus. He can probably help us.»

Sugawara frowned. «Do I want to know how you know this guy and then forgot about him?»

«Oh, we just slept together,» Oikawa shrugged. «A short fling, it's hard to keep track of them. But we know him! He can probably be persuaded to help us.»

Yachi, from her tile, blinked innocently, and Sugawara groaned, rubbing his eyes.  
«Cerberus.»

«Yeah,» Oikawa said. «He guards the gates to the underworld, surely he knows how to get in, or out for that matter.»

«My gods you're going to go through with this,» Sugawara sighed.

«Anything for my Ya-chan!»

«Oh, please don't worry about me, I wouldn't-»

«Tuttuttut, darling! We're going to Paris! It's lovely there this time of year. You'll like it. We'll get Kuroo to get us tickets. It'll be fun!»

«Fun,» Sugawara deadpanned.

«Oh, like you're not aching to come with us?»

Sugawara sighed.  
«I mean, one of us will need to be the voice of reason,» he said. «but I don't know if my employer will like me taking time off to traipse around Europe summoning the dead.»

«Oh, that does sound awful if you put it like that,» Yachi nodded. «Are you sure we should do this?»

«Absolutely,» Oikawa said firmly. «I'm sure he knows what he's doing. What could possibly go wrong?»

 


	2. Birds and black cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sugawara goes on a date.

Sugawara's track record for relationships was both varied and painful.  
It was becoming a problem, really.  
Because unlike Oikawa, who seemed to relish in short, passionate love affairs, Sugawara was actually looking for someone that fit him.  
Long term, so to speak.  
A person he could come home to and cook with and cuddle and, you know, _be with_.

This was something that everyone around him, bar one overly theatrical god of Art, seemed to be able to find just fine.  
Even Yachi.  
And while she was lovely and adorable and all kinds of awesome, she was honestly also such a nervous wreck that her and Yamaguchi getting together seemed like a minor miracle.

Meanwhile, Sugawara was still alone.  
His longest relationship to date had lasted a year and a half and ended… badly.

So it was with a certain amount of informed trepidation that he approached the small restaurant where he was meeting his date.  
It should be fine, though.  
He was at a tiredness level halfway between awake and exhausted: just clear enough to be witty and focused, but not so chipper as to annoy.  
And he'd picked out his most stylish shirt.  
In passing a shop window, he could see that his reflection looked good. His hair was doing all the right things, the bags under his eyes were minimal.  
It was going to be fine.

Humming a little to combat his own nervousness, he stopped short of the actual restaurant and lingered, checking the books in the window of the shop next door.

 

Fukunaga Shouhei.  
That was the name of his date.  
An Aumakua, Godbook had told him. A guardian gecko spirit for a large Hawaiian family that had spanned centuries.  
Currently reincarnated in the body of a salaryman living in Sugawara's home town.  
No one ever said god incarnations had to be logical.

He'd contacted the guy on a whim. He didn't even know if Fukunaga was gay.  
As such, this wasn't an official _date_ date, but a 'let's chat and connect, being godlings' date.  
A work date, so to speak.  
But should it _become_ a date date, Sugawara at least had some common qualities to look forward to.

In a way it was playing it safe, he had to admit.  
Dating another godling meant that there was at least one very long, awkward and possibly existential conversation they wouldn't have to have if they ever got serious.  
He might need to explain the thing with the shadows of night, but he wouldn't be required to clarify the frankly unproven theory that faith just... lingers, and that this is why, even two thousand years later, people are still born with ancient powers and set roles buried deep inside them.  
That when they die, those roles move on, and on, and on.  
Also no one was going to try and have him institutionalized for the god thing.  
That would be a plus.

All of that was assuming, of course, that they would get past the first date.  
Which may not even be a proper date.

 

"Sugawara-san?"  
The man ambling toward him was a bit taller than Sugawara had imagined.  
A little ganglier, too.

"Ah, Fukunaga-san, nice to meet you."  
Sugawara pulled up his most charming smile and gave a little bow.

Fukunaga blinked and nodded.  
"Shall we go in?" he said.

"Of course,” Sugawara smiled. “From what I've heard, this place is known for its large dumpling platters. I hope you're hungry.”

"Like a horse!" Fukunaga said, “A dumpling horse!”  
And he chuckled to himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

«And then he spent the entire rest of the evening making bad puns,» Sugawara sighed, sinking into his couch.  
He'd switched the fancy shirt and pants for elephant print pyjama's.

«But was he hot?» Oikawa offered, from his tile in the chat program.  
He was sitting at his desk, wearing glasses, apparently hard a work.  
Whatever work meant when it came to him.

«Kinda?» Sugawara said. «Yeah ok, he was hot. Well-built. Weird eyes but, you know, fit. Very fit.»

«Then what does his sense of humour matter? If you're just gonna get laid. Please tell me you got laid, Su-chan.»

«I did not.»

«Oh my gods. You are useless!» Oikawa said.  
He took a moment to pause his clicking around and look at the camera with the expression of a disappointed, if slightly worried matron.  
«Did he turn out to be straight or something? I thought all gods were pan.»

«That's just you, Tooru,» Kuroo interjected.  
He sat in a chair a little away from the camera, with a book in hand and a black cat draped languidly across his legs.

«Then did you turn him off somehow?» Oikawa asked.

«Oh for the love of...» Sugawara huffed. «We're seeing each other again tomorrow. We're meeting for drinks after work. I have the day shift.»

 

«Well, take your time then. I guess,» Oikawa pouted. «I'm just saying you've been really grumpy lately, and some stress relief could-»

«Oikawa, I am grumpy because I'm overworked, and because Yachi nearly died. Did you already forget about that part?»

«I have not,» Oikawa said. «But we're working on that, remember? What I'm worried about with you, is that you're miserable and when you're miserable you're whiny and it _spreads_.»

«Gee thanks,» Sugawara moped.

«So just get laid already.»

«I dunno,» Sugawara said miserably. «It's not like I don't want to.»  
He rolled his head back, talking to the ceiling.  
«It just felt weird, you know. I'd have to be comfortable around him, first. Besides, I'm pretty sure that it would be an instant mood killer, if he like opens his shirt and goes 'you can't touch this', and does the 'danananana' thing. Because that's totally something he'd do and I need to mentally prepare for this sort of event.»

 

There was a snort and a loud, hawkish laugh.  
«Oh I gotta try that one,» Kuroo said, from beneath a now slightly alarmed cat.

«Please don't. Kai would never forgive me for inspiring you.»

«Humor is important, my friend,» Kuroo hummed, and he petted the poor creature, trying to calm it down again.

«I wonder what his powers are,» Oikawa added. «Is it gecko's that have the tongue? I'm willing to live with some really bad humor if they can do the-»

«By the gods, Oikawa,» Sugawara whined. «Also that's chameleons. I think you're talking about chameleons.»

«Gecko's do have surprisingly long tongues, though,» Kuroo said, to the sound of Oikawa shouting 'HA' from his tile.  
«By the way, do you need to talk more, or can I get back to this curse business?» he added.

«Yes, please let's stop making fun of my love life,» Sugawara said. «Just let me pour a drink first.»

 

«Is that wise?» Oikawa said when he returned with a glass of whiskey.

«Nope,» Sugawara hummed, flopping back onto the couch. «Not gonna stop me though.»

«Right.»

«So.»  
Kuroo carefully lifted a now very grumpy cat from his lap and came over to the computer, where he clicked around for a moment.  
«I looked it up and I think I found Oikawa's Cerberus dude,» he said.  
A photo appeared on screen, of a mean looking man with a dyed buzz cut and a prominent pout.

«That's him!» Oikawa shouted. «Kyouken! I remember now.»

«Good job,» Kuroo muttered. «His name is Kyoutani, actually, and he's not on Godbook yet, but I did find a phone number.»

 

«Awesome,» Sugawara said, taking a gulp of burning liquor.  
«Great. We are actually going to go through with this.»

«And since I don't speak a lick of French, I thought I'd have Tooru call him, but he doesn't want to talk to Tooru,» Kuroo continued.

«No surprise there,» Sugawara noted, swirling ice cubes in his glass.  
Then he paused. «Doesn't he speak Greek?» he said, frowning.

«So yeah, I called him in Ancient Greek,» Kuroo went on, «which was awkward for a moment, because you can't just assume everyone speaks ancient Greek, _Suga_ , even if they're, ya know… Cerberus.»

«Why not?» Oikawa huffed.

«Because he's a dog?» Kuroo offered.

«Oh my gods, he's not a dog!» Oikawa said. «It's, like, symbolic for the guardian of the afterlife. Can you imagine the reincarnation happening in actual dogs?»

«That would be cool,» Sugawara nodded.  
He was getting mildly buzzed already. This day was surely getting a little too long  
«Can you imagine a little puppy being born and then at night he gets two extra heads and chases ghosts?»  
He giggled, and the other two squinted at him through their camera.

 

«Ok, so he's not a dog,» Kuroo coughed. «What he _is_ , is a bouncer. And he hates Tooru. Have I mentioned that? I don't know what you did to him but-»

«I did nothing!» Oikawa protested. «We got to talking in a club, and we had a fun night and I flew back home the next morning.»

«Maybe you broke his heart,» Sugawara said, and he drained half his glass in one go.

«Oh come on, as if hearts are that easily broken.»

«Aaaaannnyway,» Kuroo interjected. «He hates Tooru, but he's willing to do us a favour, in return for cold, hard cash. I explained to him that we just wanted to talk to a specific dead person, in order to lift a curse, and he was all 'yeah sure'.»

Sugawara blinked at him.

«Well, ok» Kuroo shrugged, «what he said was 'that's fucking weird, but yeah sure', so I guess we have our… death god thing sorted?»

« _Fantastic,»_ Sugawara muttered.  
He was gonna need another drink.

 

«And we can all go on a trip to Paris!»

«I'm not sure if it's a good idea for you to go, Tooru,» Kuroo said calmly. «The guy HATES you. I don't know why and it's not my business, but he has a history as a boxer, look.»

Another picture appeared on screen, this time a poster advertising a lightweight boxing match in French.  
Kyoutani managed to look even more menacing in it.  
'Knock-out champion', it said in bright, bold letters above his head.

«He seems nice,» Sugawara hummed.

«Yeahhh, so I kinda don't want to deal with him bashing Oikawa's brain in.»

«Oh come ON,» Oikawa huffed.

«Also Yachi will be there, and she'd be really upset if you got hurt,» Sugawara added.

«We're taking Ya-chan?» Oikawa said.

«Of course we are,» Kuroo answered. «She's the one that got cursed.»

«At the very least, the shadow lady might recognize her or something,» Sugawara said.

 

«Well, if she's going, I'm going,» Oikawa said, folding his arms. «If you're so worried about it, we'll use Ya-chan to appease the big scary dog man with her cuteness.»

«What?» Sugawara said.

«What? There's a million stories of tiny blonde girls befriending raging beasts. It's a thing,» Oikawa said.  
«Look it up. Either way: I'm going. Tetsu, make it so.»

«What am I, your butler?» Kuroo raised an eyebrow.

«No, but you _are_ the god of travel and whatever, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to set this up. I'll provide the cash for Kyouken's fee.»

«You will?» Sugawara frowned.

«I'm not poor, like you lot.»

«I'm hardly p-» Kuroo started saying, and then thought better of it. «Yup, yup, terribly poor, we lot. Thanks for doing this, you're a bro.»

«Good,» Oikawa said. «I will expect a first class ticket, and maybe a nice suite when we're in Paris?»

«Sure, sure,» Kuroo hummed, smiling mischievously.  
Sugawara squinted at him, and he winked.  
«Let's set up some dates when we're all free, yes?»

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Sugawara pondered dogs and their friendship with little girls, as he took the bus across town.  
He'd gotten off work after the morning shift, and now he sat, with a bento box and two cans of green tea on his lap, watching buildings and trees skip by.

It was nice out.  
Sunny. Warm. Good day for a pick-nick.  
When the bus neared Chausuyama Park, he got up.  
He pushed the bell and a few minutes later he got off, greeted immediately by the happy chirps of birds, and the distant sounds of playing children.

He wasn't really sure why they'd decided to meet here, other than that it was a nice day, and the location seemed... safe.  
Not too many expectations to be had, with two men having bento's in the park.  
Even if it might make them stand out a little.

This time of day, the place was mostly occupied by kids and their moms.  
The occasional jogger, too, maybe, or an old guy walking his dog.  
But generally, not adult men in suits.  
Afternoons on weekdays were not for them, it seemed. It was certainly not a time for them to be out and having fun.

The fact that Fukunaga somehow managed to take a day off to hang out with him was either a heavy sign to how important Sugawara was, or some kind of god quirk the dude was abusing.  
He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

 

As he walked to the entrance, Sugawara found his date sitting on a bench nearby.  
He had a box of crackers with him, and occasionally he would pick a cookie and pull pieces off, throwing the crumbles to a growing crowd of birds.

“Fukunaga! Hi,” Sugawara said, with a wave and a smile.

The man looked up.

“Nice day, isn't it?”

Fukunaga nodded.

“Do you want to sit here, or shall we go deeper into the park?” Sugawara tried.

With another nod, Fukunaga got up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So then Izumi-san says...”  
Sugawara was about halfway through a story about a wayward patient who kept trying to sneak out of the ward to go smoke cigarettes, when he noticed Fukunaga hadn't really reacted to him for a while.  
“I'm sorry,” he said. “You can, uh, tell me when I'm boring you.”

Fukunaga looked up and blinked at him.  
“You weren't.”

“Oh,” Sugawara said. “I just... sometimes I get carried away and... I guess I thought I'd lost you there for a second.”

The guy shook his head, and broke another piece off his cracker.  
He'd assembled a new posse of doves crowding around them.

“Quiet type, huh,” Sugawara smiled, watching the birds fight over crumbs.

Fukunaga shrugged.  
“People like to talk. I let them.”

This made Sugawara chuckle, and he watched one bird chase another for a piece of bread.  
“And what do you get from this?” he asked carefully.

Fukunaga blinked.  
“Knowledge,” he said after a pause. “About things like Izumi-san. And you. I've been trying to figure out what you want from me.”

“Uhhh,” Sugawara stammered. “I guess I just thought it'd be fun if we hung out?”

Thoughtfully, Fukunaga nodded and tore another piece off his cracker.  
“Also puns,” he said. “My mind is a constant swirl of puns and jokes, but most people don't appreciate them. So usually it's better not to say them.”

“Ah, well that's unfortunate,” Sugawara said, a little awkwardly.

“More like punfortunate.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Maybe you just need a hobby," Nishinoya Yuu said, pursing his lips.  
It was evening, and Sugawara flopped onto the couch in Noya and Asahi's apartment, miserably draining his beer.

"You know, something fun where you meet people who aren't, like, sick,” Noya added.  
He plopped down on the other side, visibly thinking until Sugawara could almost see the light bulb going on above his head.  
“Ooh! I know some good teams you can sign up to,” Noya shouted. “Maybe you'd be good at volleyball? They're always looking for people and you're pretty tall. I've been trying to get Asahi into basketball. You could join him, you know, get out there."  
He gave Sugawara the kind of smile that would make a 'ping' sound if this were a cartoon.

"I'm out there plenty, Noya," Sugawara whined. "That's part of the problem, sometimes."

 

"So the date didn't work out, huh," Asahi said, coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of nori chips and a sympathetic expression on his face.

Sugawara made a disgruntled noise.

"You wanna tell us what happened?" Asahi said gently, in what Sugawara always thought of as his therapist voice.

"It was fine,” Sugawara sighed. “We had dinner and walked through the park. He's funny, sortof."

"But things didn't work out?" Asahi said, taking a seat in the comforter opposite him.

“I just wasn't feeling it,” Sugawara said, spreading his arms for emphasis. “There wasn't anything _there_. So when he asked me to come home with him, I said no."

 

“You should really stop beating yourself up over this stuff,” Noya said, reaching for the chips.

“Maybe I should have just slept with him;” Sugawara moped. “I went and made it awkward, what if he was the one?”

“You always think he's the one, Suga. Your judgement is pretty shit on that front,” Noya mumbled around some chips, and he grinned when Asahi gave him a stern look.

“I do NOT,” Sugawara huffed.  
He folded his arms and looked at Asahi,in a blatant plea for support.

But his old friend just looked away.  
"You kinda do, there, Suga, I'm afraid.”

“Ugh, you guys are no help. Just turn on the game,” Sugawara said, and he got up to grab another beer.

 

When he came back from the kitchen, he noticed that Asahi was still sitting in the comforter, two metres away from Nishinoya, which for them was exactly two metres too much.

“Do you want this seat, Asahi?,” Sugawara asked, stopping by the couch.

“Oh, no I'm fine.”

Sugawara squinted at him.

“Really,” Asahi said, while his face screamed of discomfort.

On TV, the evening's soccer match was starting, two teams walking onto the field under applause.  
Sugawara sighed.  
“Look,” he said. “I know you don't want to make me feel like a third wheel. But for the love of all the gods, don't go out of your way to keep your hands off each other. I have never melted from your displays of affection, and I'm not going to now.”

There was a snort, and Noya jumped up from the couch.  
With a wide grin, he climbed into Asahi's lap.  
His boyfriend promptly turned pink.

“There,” Sugawara said, taking his seat and stretching his legs out over the couch, “Much better. Now what are the chances of our team winning this?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kuroo stretched and yawned, scratching his belly while he shuffled across the living room in his fuzzy slippers.

『Good morning, Tetsu.』  
In the kitchen, Nobuyuki Kai didn't even look up from making sandwiches as a head of messy black hair poked through the doorway.

 

『Mmmmm, morning,』 Kuroo mumbled, groggily leaning against the counter.

『Coffee?』 Kai asked.  
He was fully dressed, unreasonably cheerful and actually seemed awake, as opposed to Kuroo, who looked and felt like lint trapped in a dryer.

『God, yes,』 Kuroo said.

Wordlessly, Kai poured out a mug of coffee, and pushed it into his hand.

『I love you,』 Kuroo hummed, before taking a long sip.

『I know,』 Kai smiled, and he finished packing his lunch.

『Off to work?』 Kuroo asked.

『Yes. Prepping a TED talk. You?』

『Class 5B is having a Project. Starting at ten today.』

Kai nodded.  
『Dinner?』

『I'll cook it,』 Kuroo said. 『Chicken?』

『Sounds nice.』  
Kai dropped his lunch in his bag and poured coffee into a thermos.

『Back late?』 Kuroo asked.

『Seven, probably.』  
Kai screwed his thermos shut and stuffed it into his bag, slinging it across his shoulder.

『Bedhead?』 Kuroo asked.

『Spectacular,』 Kai smiled, 『At least an eight out of ten this morning.』  
And he leaned in to peck him on the lips.  
『Have fun at work.』

『You too,』Kuroo said and he stretched again, watching his husband walk out the door.  
Then he refilled some of his coffee and shoved bread in the toaster.

 

 

“Doooo doo, dot doooo doo, dot dididaaa, dot dididooo.”

A MIDI version of The Song of Time fluttered through the living room, announcing a new call.  
Frowning, Kuroo grabbed his plate and mug, and walked over to his laptop.

“Doooo doo, dot doooo doo, dot dididaaa, dot dididooo.”

 

_Incoming call: Kyoutani Kentarou._

 

Blinking, Kuroo opened it.  
«Mister Kyoutani!» he said, smiling widely. «Good to see you.»

On Kuroo's screen, Kyoutani grunted a greeting.  
He looked like he was on his phone, walking through the street.  
Kuroo could see shop windows pass behind the man, and the orange glow of street lights moved by slowly.

«What can I do for you?» Kuroo asked.

«I've been thinking about your request,» Kyoutani said, looking slightly embarrassed. «About that chick you wanna summon?»

«Yes?» Kuroo said, sipping coffee, «Is there anything you need?»

Kyoutani sighed.  
«Is she dead?»

«Yes.»

«You sure?»

«She lived three hundred years ago, mister Kyoutani,» Kuroo deadpanned. «If she was alive that would be some kind of miracle.»

Kyoutani frowned, and then his eyes darted away for a second, apparently to glare at a passerby.  
He turned back to the camera.  
«And this name you gave me, Mishi-something,» he said.

«Michimiya Yui, yes.»

«That's her name?»

«Positive,» Kuroo said, and he put his mug down to lean his head on his hand.  
«I take it there is some kind of problem?»

 

Kyoutani looked uncomfortable for a second, and he stepped into what looked like a side street.  
He leaned against a wall and glared at his camera.  
«I can't find her,» he said.

«I'm sorry?»

«I said I can't find her, you moron!»  
Kyoutani took a breath.  
«Look » he said, «There's traces, usually. If they're down there. If you have a pic or a name. I can find them. But for this chick, the trace is super weak. I can't summon her like this.»

 

Kuroo frowned and thoughtfully bit a piece off his toast, chewing on it while the man on his screen got progressively more uncomfortable.  
«That's unfortunate,» he finally said. «Is there anything we can do? To make the trace thing stronger? We really do need to talk to her.»

Kyoutani rolled his neck and pouted.  
«Where did she die?»

«Japan,» Kuroo nodded. «I can take you to the exact place.»

«Fine, let's do that then. I need the money. But you'd better get me there.»

Kuroo grinned.  
«Pleasure doing business with you.»

 


	3. Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes go on an Adventure, and Daichi finally shows up.

In her tiny apartment in Kyoto, Yachi Hitoka fretted.  
"Should I bring a sun dress?" she said, frowning at her clothes-strewn bed.

"It's August. Sun dresses do seem appropriate. Also you look really cute in that blue one," came the voice of Yamaguchi Tadashi, pottering around in the kitchen.

"But then what if it gets cold? And is a sun dress… formal enough? We're probably visiting shrines and doing magic and I don't want people to see me and think 'what a horrifically rude woman'."

"Hitoka," Yamaguchi walked into the bedroom and laid a soft hand on her shoulder. "Oikawa will be there. And that Kuroo man. If anyone is going to seem rude, it won't be you."

Yachi pouted.

"Maybe bring a jacket though," he added. "Nights are cold up by the coast."

She sighed and picked out some more clothes before standing back and biting her lip.

"You're very nervous about this," Yamaguchi said, tilting his head. "It's not the first time you're going on a trip, or even hanging out with these people."

"Well yes, but they're doing magic," Yachi said, flailing her hands. "This is powerful and weird and it could be very dangerous."

Yamaguchi stilled for a moment.  
“True,” he said. “But as long as Oikawa doesn't try to curse anyone it'll... hopefully be ok? Didn't you say this guy you hired knows what he's doing? It's like a séance, right? Only without an Ouija board?"

"Yes, but also," she sighed. "They're doing all this just to help me..."  
Around her wrist, a pattern of teeth marks, slightly darker than her skin, lingered.  
She absent-mindedly rubbed it.

"Well, they care a lot about you," Yamaguchi hummed, walking up behind her and slipping his arms around her waist.

"I just feel a little guilty that they're going to that much trouble," she finally said, leaning into his embrace.

"I don't know," he whispered as he buried his nose in her hair. "Seems like a pretty good cause to me."

 

* * *

 

 

In a concrete, fifties' style apartment building on the outskirts of Paris, Kyoutani Kentarou finished packing.  
Mostly clothes, really, and a copy of the assorted works of Proust that he was really finally going to get through.  
Or so he told himself

He leaned the backpack against the table and double-checked his paperwork.  
The Kuroo guy had sent him a return plane ticket, a phone number to call once he got to Japan, and honest to god cab fare for a taxi to Charles de Gaule airport.  
Like this was some kind of school trip or something.  
Kentarou had long since decided to just pocket the money and take the metro instead, like a sensible person.

With a sigh, he stuffed the papers into his backpack and strapped it on.  
Then he whistled.  
Nails clicking on the vinyl floor, tail wagging like it was trying to lift him off the ground, a small pitbull puppy trotted over.  
With a rare smile, Kentarou knelt down to scratch it behind the ears.

Then he snapped the dog's leash onto his collar and walked out, giving his apartment a final glance, before he closed the door.  
Carefully descending the stairs so the pup could keep up, he walked one floor down, where he knocked on a neighbour's door.  
The guy who opened it wore a scowl, like Kentarou had just interrupted him doing something important. Knowing his neighbour, 'important' probably meant he was styling that stupid hair of his.  
Wordlessly, Kentarou handed him the leash, before crouching down again to hug the dog.  
With a soft sigh and a wave to his neighbour, he walked off down the stairs.

 

* * *

 

 

『You know you don't have to do this?』 Kuroo Tetsurou said as he sat in the passenger seat of his car, driving up to Wellington Airport. 『I mean I appreciate the gesture, but I could take a cab,』

Kai just shrugged.  
『I don't mind,』he said. 『It's nice. Makes me feel like I'm in some rom com. Maybe one of those historic dramas where they wave handkerchiefs at the boat sailing off across the sea.』

Kuroo gave him a sideways glance.  
『You have both the worst and the best taste, love.』

『I guess,』Kai shrugged.

 

* * *

 

 

Oikawa Tooru walked through Sheremetyevo International, trailing a carry-on trolley and sporting sun glasses despite this being an overcast morning, and indoors.  
He held his phone at arms length, talking into a small headset.

『And so, my little darlings, it seems like my next vlog will not come from a night club in a hip beach resort, or a fast paced city, but from the calm shores and zen gardens of Japan. Let me know in the comments what different types of ramen I should eat, and which beer to try! Kanpai!』  
He held up a peace sign.  
『Bye bye! And remember, I love you all.』  
He flashed the camera a smile and closed the video, stopping briefly to upload it.

Then he walked up to the desk agent and took off his glasses, switching from English to flawless Russian.  
「Good morning ma'am,」he said, pulling out his passport. 「Oikawa Tooru. I have a reservation.」

Silently, the woman typed his info into her computer.  
「The 7:14 flight to Tokyo, yes?」

「That's right,」 Oikawa lilted. 「First class.」

The woman frowned. 「I'm sorry, sir,」 she said. 「But there's seems to be an issue.」

「Oh?」

「You were booked, it says here, for business class.」

「Hmmmm,」 Oikawa frowned. 「I requested first class, but ok.」

「And because of an overbooking, we will have to seat you in coach,」 the woman went on.

「Wait what?」 Oikawa's voice shot up slightly more than he wanted it to.

「We have grounded a plane with technical difficulties, so this is the only one flying out today. It's completely full.」

「Well how does that effect me?」 Oikawa huffed.

「Seems like you were bumped down when filling up the plane,」 she shrugged.

「That never happens! It's usually the other way around. Bump me back up!」

「Usually, sir,」 the woman said, looking more bored by the minute. 「But it seems like these are special circumstances. The airline checked with the person who booked for you, and they said it was fine to give others priority.」

Oikawa squinted at her.  
「Can you switch me with someone else?」, he asked.

「We can't do that, sir, most people have checked in already.」

「That's a nine hour flight, surely you can do something?」

The woman gave him a blank look.

「This is ridiculous, 」 he sighed.

The woman, surprisingly immune to his pleas, shrugged.  
「I could put you on the next plane, sir. Flying out tomorrow.」

Oikawa drooped.  
「Fine,」 he said. 「Fine, I'll just take this one.」

Nodding, the woman printed out his ticket.  
「Here you go,sir, 34E.」

Oikawa stared at it.  
「That's the middle seat,」 he growled. 「By the toilets.」

「I'm very sorry, sir,」 the woman said, with a face that didn't look sorry at all.  
「The extra fare will, of course, be compensated to your booking agent.」

Oikawa took a deep breath, and tried the puppy eyes.  
「Ma'am, is there really nothing you can do for me?」

The woman tilted her head.  
「I can give you a voucher for airport coffee?」

 

* * *

 

 

The small plane carrying Sugawara Koushi from Nagano to Narita Airport touched down, and he held his nose, sending the absence air through it to pop his ears.  
Then he carefully stretched and cracked his neck, smiling at the old lady next to him.

“That wasn't as bad as I feared,” she hummed.

“Told you, ma'am,” he said, and he got up to help her bags down.  
Then he put his headphones on and walked off the plane, calmly strolling through the airport while streams of people hurried around him.

Airports always gave him a weird feeling.  
They were liminal spaces, definitely, something not quite of this world. The most liminal of spaces, even, in that sense that no single piece of real estate screamed 'elsewhere' as much as an airport did.  
No one, including most of the staff, wanted to be here.  
It was home to nothing but wanderlust, nervousness and hope.  
And overpriced food. That too.

It was also, he realized, despite the sheer volume of people, an incredibly lonely place.  
Sugawara quietly drifted along with the crowd, past the luggage belts and the security and into the Arrivals hall, where he took a seat in an outpost of a large coffee shop chain.  
He checked his phone: noon. He was going to be here for a while.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first to arrive, looking like he'd been stuffed into a suitcase for the entire trip, was Oikawa.  
«I'm going to murder Tetsu,» he said, plopping down at the table.

Sugawara raised an eyebrow at him.  
«Hi?»

«Sorry. Hey. Good to see you again. Please get me a coffee?»

With a snort, Sugawara stood up.  
When he came back with a latte and a piece of cake, just for good measure, Oikawa was tapping away at his phone.

«He put me in coach,» he said, not looking up. «Can you believe that? After all I've done for him.»  
He stopped, briefly, and took a large, scalding gulp from his paper cup.  
«Thanks, by the way. But anyway, instead of first class, I spend nine friggin hours in coach, between a guy who smelled like feet and a woman who wouldn't stop talking to her friend three seats over.»

«That sounds unpleasant,» Sugawara hummed, sipping from his own americano.

«Unpleasant doesn't even begin to describe it. I very nearly went crazy. I am not built for this torture.»

Sugawara gave him a soft pat on the arm, and Oikawa grunted, miserably taking another gulp of coffee, as if to burn away any memory of his past trip.

 

 

Next came Yachi, who fluttered in from the train station.

«Darling!»  
Oikawa got up and pulled her into a long, flustering hug.  
«H-hello Oikawa-san, Suga-san,» she said, blushing furiously as she disentangled herself from Oikawa's arms and took a seat. «I hope you haven't waited long.»

«It was fine,» Sugawara smiled. «Oikawa has been regaling me with stories of his conquests for some reason.»

«I was giving you tips, Su-chan,» Oikawa pouted. «But now that you're here, Ya-chan, and not running away like you always are, you can finally tell me all about Yamaguchi.»

«Um.»

«If you want, I can give you some tips, too. My experience with women is slightly less than with men but-»

«Can it, Oikawa,» Sugawara said sternly, watching the girl turn a bright pink.  
«Why don't you tell us how your research is going instead?»

 

Yachi proceeded to explain the latest progressions in her doctorate thesis on the properties of Lonicera japonica, and Oikawa leaned his head on his hands, gradually losing interest.  
It was half an hour later that he suddenly shot up, face creasing into a smile.

«Kyouken!»

The man walking their way, wearing combat boots and an old backpack, looked like he didn't so much belong in an airport, as in a shady back alley, prossibly selling some illicit substance.   
Worse still, the moment he noticed Oikawa, he growled.  
«You.»

«Me! It's good to see you again,» Oikawa said, getting up and shooting over to the taciturn man. «It's been too long, Kyouken.»

«The name is Kentarou,» Kentarou scowled. «And the last time we met you left me in an unpaid hotel room. With a completely empty mini fridge. I don't drink.»

Oikawa, somehow, managed to stop mid flight.  
«Ohhhh, right,» he said. «Right, I remember now.»

 

It was quiet for a full second, and Sugawara almost hoped that the moment had passed, when Oikawa grinned. «That was fun though.»

Faster than the eye could seen, Kentarou grabbed him by the shirt.  
«Fun?» he said, bearing his teeth.

«Alright, everyone calm down,» Sugawara said, glancing at the lady behind the coffee shop counter, who was quickly becoming horrified.  
«I'm sure this is a misunderstanding and Oikawa will absolutely compensate you for anything he still owes, won't you Oikawa,» he added, standing up.

«Sure, sure,» Oikawa croaked. «We're all friends here, right? And even if we're not, this is first and foremost a business transaction.»

«I could punch your lights out,» Kentarou said lowly, «How is that for compensation?»

 

«Oh, please don't,» Yachi had gotten up and now stood next to the two fighting men, visibly trembling.

Kyoutani blinked, suddenly aware that she was there, and his face flushed.  
His hand let go of Oikawa's shirt, and he took a few steps back.

«Thanks darling,» Oikawa said, brushing his clothes.

Sugawara nudged him in the ribs.

«Of course,» Oikawa went on, «I'm very sorry.»

Sugawara nudged him again, harder this time.

«Owwwstopthat, alright alright,» Oikawa grunted, slapping him away. «So as my friend here says, I'm very sorry and we'll make sure it's all settled and compensated and all that.»

Kyoutani pouted, and the tension fell from his shoulders.  
«Sorry ma'am,» he nodded to Yachi, and he folded onto a nearby seat.

 

«I told you,» Oikawa said in a stage whisper. «Never underestimate the power of a cute girl when dealing with beasts.»

Kentarou's eyes shot up.

«Maybe stop calling him that,» Sugawara groaned, raising his hands in the international 'please don't start a fight in an airport, the cops here are probably armed and on edge' gesture. «Why don't I, uh, get you a drink, mister Kyoutani. Something, uh, refreshing?»

 

By the time Kuroo arrived, with a delayed flight, things had calmed down tremendously.  
Oikawa was slumped over a table, snoring, and Kyoutani had found himself a corner where he was quietly reading.  
Kuroo dropped his bag and placed a hand on Yachi's arm.  
«Hello kitten,» he said in a low voice.  
«Kuroo-san!»

«Suga,» he waved.

Sugawara nodded.

«Toor… I'll let him be» he shrugged and walked up to Kentarou.  
«Hey, I'm Kuroo, we spoke on the phone.»

The guy slowly raised his eyes from his book.  
«I know.»

«Pleasure to meet you,» Kuroo grinned, unperturbed.

Kentarou shrugged.

«Anyway,» Kuroo said, turning to the others. «Sorry I'm late. Let me just get something to drink and we'll be right off. I got us a van. Suga, you're driving.»

«I…. am?» Suga said, raising his eyebrows.

«You can drive, right?» Kuroo asked.

«Yes? Badly, but yes.»

«Great!» Kuroo said. «I figured you'd be the most awake of us. You're at least in the right time zone and by the looks of it you're on two … three coffees?»

«Five,» Sugawara said, «but yeah, ok.»

«Ouch, alright. Sorry for being late. It wasn't my fault,» Kuroo grimaced. «Someone wake the idiot up.»  
And he walked towards the counter, while Yachi carefully shook Oikawa. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sawamura Daichi sat on the cold, dead ground and closed his eyes.  
The wound on his arm stung, as it always did.  
It no longer bled. It had stopped bleeding a long time ago.  
But it also did not heal.  
It just hurt.

His robes were ripped and dirty.  
Unworthy, really.  
Instead of pristine symbols of purity they had become a mockery, had turned _him_ into a mockery.  
But there was very little he could do about that now.

He placed his hands in his lap, ignored the protesting of his muscles.  
He was uncomfortable but not in pain, not really.  
Not enough to become unbearable.

Around him, the wind blew, carrying whispers and sand, more dirt to adorn his once white robes.  
He paid it no mind.  
Daichi closed his eyes and let his mind wander.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“The road our hotel is on should be somewhere to our left,” Yachi whispered, double-checking her phone.  
It had taken Sugawara a little while to get a full handle on the soccer mom van that Kuroo had somehow acquired for them, but once he did, the people in the back had stopped gripping the upholstery with white knuckles and instead had mostly gone to sleep.  
As such, the trip to Mie had been surprisingly uneventful; just soft snores and light j-rock playing on the radio, while Yachi occasionally helped him with directions.  
It was almost peaceful, Sugawara thought, as they weaved their way through a mountain road not far from the coast.

“Hmm, there's no signpost or anything,” Sugawara frowned, peering at the endless trees in front of him.

“There,” Yachi pointed out, indicating a small private road that went up the hill.

Sugawara followed it, snaking between the trees until they reached a large wooden, very traditional looking house.  
Gabled roof, big porch, sliding wooden doors, the works.

 

«Wow, this looks like a fancy ryoukan,» Yachi gasped.

«A particularly empty one,» Sugawara said, turning into the lone parking space at the front.

«It should be all ours, actually,» Kuroo yawned, and he stretched. «I figured we'd want the privacy.»

«And the distance to society, in case of zombie break-out?» Sugawara hummed, pulling on the parking brake.

«That too,» Kuroo grinned at him in the rear-view mirror.  
«On the downside, we'll have to cook ourselves, and there's no onsen.»

«Aww,» Oikawa, next to him said, rubbing his eyes grumpily. «What's an onsen?»

«It's like a big hot tub, Tooru.»

«Oh.»

«But there should be baths in the basement,» Kuroo added.

«God, I could use one of those,» Oikawa said, and he pushed open the car door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Daichi's mind was a house of many rooms.  
He tried his best to keep it patched up. 

One room in this house held the memories of his childhood, his parents, siblings, friends and animals he grew up with. He revisited this room often, mentally cleaning the dust off the floors, keeping things tidy.  
He did not want to lose what was there, did not want it to decay over time. 

Another room contained his time as a teenager.   
These memories were more volatile, he found, less solid than the image of his mother's eyes, or the smell of plum blossoms in his grandfather's garden. His teenage memories were soaked in emotions, drenched in feelings of rebellion and passion.  
It made them easy to crack and distort, so he handled them carefully.

There was a third room that he tried to avoid, though he often found himself there.  
A lot of memories lived here. Of cameraderie, of friendships forged in fire and nights eating together, joking around, drinking.  
But they were soured by the others, by images of steel, of blood.  
Many regrets lived in this room, and they stalked him whenever he entered.

And then there was the fourth room.  
This was where he kept the memories of his time at the shrine.  
The were the most vivid of all. The most recent, too.  
The last thing to happen to him.  
He came here often, walking through the halls of his thoughts, brushing the dust off the floor, revisiting and trying to make sense of it all.  
He couldn't help but wonder what he'd done wrong, what he could have done different. 

It made little sense, he knew, to think like that.   
There was nothing he could do about it now.  
But still his thoughts wandered here.  
It was a ritual, almost, the idea that he could have changed fate, an automated gesture that he allowed himself, but only briefly.  
It was a dangerous thing to linger on, something he could easily sink into.

 

So most of the time that Daichi spent in his house of many rooms, was passed in the halls and gardens of his imagination.   
He built whole worlds here, constructed elaborate story lines, played out battles and adventures and, most painful of all, soft scenes of domesticity.  
A woman and her daughter making onigiri, a man teaching his son to fish, friends drinking and laughing together.  
It hurt, but not more than reliving his memories. 

And it kept him sane. He was certain of this.   
His house of many rooms protected him, day after day, from the onslaught of nothingness that had him trapped.  
From the whispers and the dirt, the wind and the creaking of his bones.  
From the constant nagging pain in his arm and the groaning of his muscles as he sat, ever sat, on the cold, dead ground.

He was not, he had noticed, a true part of the world that kept him trapped.  
Several times, he had tried to exist there, to write his stories onto the plane. To carve words into rock, scratch them in the ground before him.  
But as soon as he lifted his hand, they would disappear.  
He was never meant to leave a mark upon this place.  
So he retreated to his house of many rooms, to a garden he imagined - a small grass field, surrounded with plum trees in bloom - and he waited.

 

 

* * *

 

 

«This garden is amazing,» Oikawa noted as he sat down on the back porch of their guest house, with a store-bought bento and a can of beer.  
There was a pond, some shapely hedges and a ton of juniper trees providing shade from a slowly setting sun.  
He stretched, sighing contently.  
He'd had a nap and a shower, and Suga and Yachi had gone out to get food, and it was finally starting to feel like a vacation.

«It's very pretty,» Kuroo hummed.  
He took a seat to him and rifled through the bag of groceries.  
«So what's the plan?» he asked, picking out a sandwich and a can of iced coffee.

«Tomorrow we go to the shrine,» Sugawara said, before blowing into his super spicy cup ramen. «Kyoutani said he needs the exact place where she died, so that's what we're going to have to find.»

«Yeah, he mentioned,» Kuroo nodded. «I hope he has, like, death detection or whatever.»

«Death-dar,» Oikawa giggled, and Kuroo snorted into drink.

 

«Where, um, _is_ Kyoutani-san?» Yachi asked.

«In his room,» Sugawara said. «I brought him his dinner. I don't think he wants to socialize.»

«Yeah, he's a bit of a downer,» Kuroo hummed. «How did he even end up with Oikawa? You think these two wouldn't get along long enough to end up in bed together.»

«Hey! I'm a catch. Don't underestimate my raw manly sex appeal,» Oikawa pouted. «Also it was probably the god thing, you know. The one you posted that report about. The bit where 'gods are attracted to other gods'. Especially when it comes to like... same pantheon or domain or whatever. It had numbers. Statistics, al the nerdy stuff you like.»

«I know,» Kuroo said. «The chance of gods meeting other gods randomly on the street is statistically way higher than it should be. But I always thought of that as more of a platonic thing to be honest.»

«It's how we lot met,» Sugawara said dryly, «and none of us are, you know...»

«Fucking? Su-chan, you can say fucking. We're all adults here.» Oikawa laughed, and Sugawara gave him a stern look.  
«I don't know, it just happened,» Oikawa continued. «Maybe Kyouken is not used to having that 'click' with people.»

«What, like he just fell for the first guy he ever had any connection with?» Sugawara frowned.

«Oh, like you're so good at 'connections' Su-chan,» Oikawa said, and he poked out his tongue.

 

 

* * *

 

 

«Oh dear,» Oikawa said, eyes glinting menacingly. «it seems like I will see your ten bottlecaps and raise you five.»

«Really?» Sugawara said, smiling sweetly. «I'm in.»

It was getting late in the evening and they sat around a low table in the living room, playing poker.  
Said table was covered in wrappers and bottle caps and can tags, forming a chip system that was both convoluted and completely useless, because it was split evenly down the middle between Oikawa and Sugawara.

«Whelp, I fold,» Kuroo shrugged, dropping his hand – two pairs – and sitting back from the battlefield.  
He wasn't entirely sure how they had ended up here, but it was probably Sugawara's fault.  
He was the one that always carried a pack of cards, anyway. 

Yachi had long since dropped out of the game, losing all her candy wrappers, and she was now sitting to the side, studying tourist leaflets on the shrine they'd be visiting tomorrow.  
To Kuroo, it was a resounding sign of her intelligence and instinct of self preservation, since he was honestly getting a little uncomfortable with the amount of tension now hanging over the card game.

 

«In fact,» Sugawara said, after a moment's silence. «Since I think we're all about ready for bed. I'l raise you.»

«Raise me?» Oikawa squinted. «How much.»

«All of it.»  
Sugawara's mouth was a friendly smile, but his gaze was pure steel.

«All or nothing?» Oikawa asked, and his face turned into a sneer that reminded Kuroo of a lion about to attack.

«All or nothing,» Sugawara replied, tilting his head like a particularly vicious, hungry cobra.

«Um,» Kuroo said.

«Shhhhhhhhh.»  
They didn't even look at him as they both shushed, eyes locked like they were in a gun duel.

«Right you are,» Kuroo nodded, and he sat back more, fairly certain that if he got caught up in this he'd quite literally burn to a crisp.

 

«You have a deal,» Oikawa said, and he pushed his pile of bottle caps to the middle of the table.  
«Excellent,» Sugawara said, doing the same.  
He'd creased his face into something resembling friendliness, but that was definitely hiding the kind of predetermined malice that Kuroo hadn't really expected in the mild mannered nurse.

«Well then,» Oikawa said. «Read 'em and weep.»  
With a flourish, he dropped his cards on the table. A straight flush.  
He grinned manically.

Kuroo whistled.

Sugawara fluttered his eyelashes.  
«That's unfortunate,» he said, face unreadable. «That's not enough to beat me.»  
And he produced a royal flush.

Oikawa's mouth fell open.  
«How.»  
He nearly growled it.  
«Tell me how, you cheating bastard. You could not have just gotten a royal flush, I s-»

«You saw it?» Sugawara smiled sweetly. «Mister cheating sun god with his all-seeing eye?»

«What like you didn't use that quirk?» Oikawa huffed. «You cheated.»

«So did you,» Sugawara grinned, sitting back. «I'm just better.»

«Wait,» Kuroo pouted, «you guys have just constantly been checking out each other's cards?»

«Well I figured Oikawa would,» Sugawara shrugged. «So I hid my queen of hearts behind the king all the way at the start, when he was busy making fun of you. He can only see what there is to be seen.»

«You little....» Oikawa sighed. «Fine. You win.»

 

«Well. This was an incredibly unfair game,» Kuroo said, getting up. «And I'm personally offended by-»

«Tetsu, we all know you snuck in that ace,» Oikawa grumbled.

«Yeah, we're counting cards here. There's two aces of clubs, trickster god,» Sugawara added.

Kuroo opened and closed his mouth a few times, gaping like a fish.  
«Well,» he finally said. «Looks like Yachi's the main victim here, then.»

From the corner of the room, Yachi looked up from her book.  
«Huh?»

«And I'm off to bed,» Kuroo grinned. «Try not to wake me when you do the creepy stuff with the shadows at sunrise. I would like nothing to do with that, thanks.»

«Goodnight, Kuroo-san,» Yachi said obligingly, and then she got up.  
«I should do the same. See you tomorrow.»

Sugawara waved at her and started packing up his cards, while Oikawa binned the trash that had served as their poker chips.

«One question,» Oikawa said as they straightened up.

«Hmmm?»

«I knew you'd watch my cards,» Oikawa pouted, «so I did the exact same thing as you, hiding the nine so you'd think I had a royal flush.»

Sugawara smiled at him.

«So how did you know.»

«Oikawa,» Sugawara said gently. «It's very simple, really. You have a terrible, terrible poker face.»  
And he patted him softly on the shoulder and walked off.

 

 

* * *

 

Morning came to the house in the mountains by the Ise Grand Shrine, and found its guests all resting peacefully.  
There was an occasional sigh or a soft snore, but nothing pierced the paper screens between the rooms except the sounds of sleep.  
Until, at 4:30 exactly, the soft tones of a piano started playing.  
Debussy, Claire de Lune.  
There was a thud as Yachi fumbled for her phone, but she quickly managed to hit the snooze button.  
Silence descended on the house once more.

Until about five minutes later, when the 'Long Long Man' jingle from the Sakura gum commercials came drifting out of Sugawara's room.

『What the actual fuck,』 came the grumpy voice of Kuroo, across the hall.

And then, once Sugawara had found a way to shut off _his_ alarm, a heavy synth started playing.  
『If you don't like the way I talk then why am I on your mind?』 a lady sang.

«I hate you guys so much right now,» Kuroo grumbled.

『If you don't like the way I rock then finish your glass of wine,』 the song went on.  
And on.  
And on.

«Someone shut that guy up?» Kuroo whined.

With a sigh, Sugawara crawled out of bed and slid open Oikawa's bedroom door.

«Oikawa?» he said gently at the darkness.

『Guaranteed I will blow your mind. Mwah.』

«Oikawa.»  
Sugawara padded across the room and tapped the bundle of sleepiness under the covers.  
With what could very well be a hiss, Oikawa's head peeked out, squinting at him.

«Let's get to work,» Sugawara said, and he turned off Oikawa's phone.

 

Two hours later, Kuroo sat hunched over a cup of coffee, still grumpy.

«I can't believe Oikawa went back to bed,» he mumbled, idly watching Yachi try to fry up some eggs. 

«Well he deals with this stuff all the time,» Sugawara said, scrolling down the newsfeed on his phone. «Ah, good morning mister Kyoutani.»

Kentarou grunted in greeting and grabbed a glass, filling it from the tap and downing it in one.  
Then he looked around the kitchen in disapproval.

«Would you like some help?» he asked Yachi.

«Um, sure?» she said, and she watched in astonishment as he started cutting vegetables and whipping up breakfast like some kind of fancy chef.

 

 

* * *

 

«So the Ise Grand Shrine is dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu,» Yachi read out loud as they entered the complex later that morning. Her small frame was almost entirely obscured by a large sun hat, and Sugawara was incredibly jealous, what with the heat already coming close to stifling.

«It's been here for two thousand years,» she went on. «And parts of it are rebuilt every twenty years. There's 125 shrines here, but Michimiya-san is supposed to have died near the main one, past the second torii gate.»

«Great,» Sugawara hummed, as they slowly followed the pilgrim path across the bridge and up the mountain.   
There were a fair amount of people here, tourists and pilgrims and staff alike, and he was starting to feel a little nervous about the spectacle they were no doubt going to make of themselves.  
Especially since Kentarou, lingering at the back of their group, seemed to be sniffing the air.

«So, uh,» he said, walking next to him. «Are you getting anything? How does this even work?»

Kentarou shrugged. «You can smell 'em.»

«Smell who?»

«Dead people,» he said.

Sugawara raised his eyebrows.  
«What, like... all dead people? Because I'm pretty sure someone died on every square metre of Japan at some point.»

«That's why you gotta know who you're after,» Kentarou said.

«Right.»  
Sugawara went quiet again, nervously following the path and at least trying to enjoy the scenery.

 

 

Things went great until they passed the second torii gate, and Kentarou veered off to the side.  
He moved quickly enough that the group had to hurry to keep up with him, Yachi at times breaking into a full sprint.

And then he stopped, suddenly, in a square by a small shrine. Large slate flagstones lined the floor, circling a round tile, about two metres across, with a distinctive crack in the middle.

«Here,» Kentarou said. «At least twenty people died here. At the same time.»

«Wow,» Yachi said. «That's so sad.»

Kentarou shrugged.

«And Michimiya was one of them?» Kuroo asked.

The Cerberus nodded, walking around the square with his eyes to the ground, like he was looking for a lost contact lens.  
«Here,» he said, pointing at the very middle of the cracked tile. «Right here.»

 

«Ok,» Kuroo said, «Alright. How do we do this. We can't very well summon things here, in the middle of a busy shrine.»

«Of course not,» Kentarou scoffed. «I can do it at the house. But it needs spit.»

«Excuse, me, what?» Oikawa said.

«Needs spit.»

«Wh-wait, you're going to spit on the ground?» Sugawara asked, hurrying over. «This is a shrine, that's not going to go over well.»

«Well do you want to summon dead people or not?» Kentarou growled. «That's how it works.»

«Right,» Kuroo said. «We're going to need a distraction. Tooru?»

Oikawa, in white linen and adorned with a pair of golden sunglasses, scoffed. «Why me?»

«Are you seriously asking that?» Kuroo said.

«You want me,» he placed his hand on his chest theatrically, «to taint the hallowed ground of... ok fine.»  
He whipped out his phone and turned on the camera, holding it at arm's length.

『Hello my darlings, 』 he said loudly, walking away and carrying the mildly baffled looks of other tourists with him.  『Today I'm at this beautiful shrine! Let me show you around! 』

Behind him, Kentarou had crouched down.  
«What an idiot,» he growled.  
Then he spit in his palm and pressed it, briefly, to the cracked tile, before getting up again.  
«Alright, done.»

 

 

* * *

 

 

Daichi knelt in an imaginary garden and tried to recall the smell of grass.  
It was earthy, leafy, he remembered. Almost like tea.  
But he couldn't quite get the scent right.  
It was escaping him, hovering just out of reach.  
He tried to focus on it again, but it was difficult, now.  
The wind and the whispers seemed louder than usual.

He opened his eyes.

He sat on an endless, empty plain. Nothing here but dirt and rocks.  
And wind.  
He had sat here for hours, days, weeks, months.  
Until he had stopped counting.  
He had long since given up trying to keep track of the passing of time, but still he was here.

Only, something seemed different now.  
The spirits around him, whatever they were, appeared restless.  
The black formless shapes moved in aimless circles, ceaselessly whispering in a language he did not understand.  
They had always done that.  
They had never paid him any mind, and he, in turn, had done his best to ignore them.  
He had no power here.

But now they seemed excited, inching closer to him than they had ever done.  
Sawamura frowned, wondering briefly if they had finally come to kill him.  
And then he heard it, something very much like a voice, gruff and dismissive, a low growl.

The effect it had on the shadows around him was instantaneous. A shriek rose up among them, and the mass moved, bashing against the invisible walls of his prison.

Daichi startled, and he became aware of a soft jingle.  
Blinking, he looked up.  
From the top of his head, a metal chain extended. It went up, reaching all the way into the grey, formless sky, farther than he could see.  
He reached up his hand and grabbed the chain. It was stuck, attached to the very bone underneath his skin, as if it had always been there, grown from there, like it was a part of his very skull.  
He gave it a tug. He could feel it all the way down his spine.

 


	4. A Summoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things go very wrong, or exactly right, depending on your viewpoint.

When Sugawara, Oikawa and Yachi came back from a grocery run in the afternoon, they found the living room of their guest house cleared.  
Kentarou had moved all the furniture against the walls and was busy putting black tape in a circle on the ancient polished wood and tatami mats.  
It made Yachi cringe.  
«Is. Um... is that your circle?» she said in a tiny voice.

The boxer looked up for a moment, watching her mildly horrified expression.  
«It's painter's tape,» he said, shrugging. «It comes off.»

Sugawara gave her a comforting smile.  
«It'll be ok,» he said.  
At least, he hoped it would be.  
Whereas the magic circles he and his direct siblings constructed tended to be very simple, a quick line that was easily made and just as swiftly dispersed, Kentarou's magic was... elaborate.  
The pattern he was taping onto the floor spanned most of the room and around the perimeter Kentarou had drawn a bunch of rudimentary symbols. None of it was too strange, Sugawara assumed, but here, stuck to the floor in black tape, it definitely looked... dangerous.  
It made Sugawara nervous. More so than he already was.

Once the thing looked demonic enough, Kentarou returned to the very middle of the circle, where he picked up a paper bag of kitchen salt and proceeded to pour it out, into a much smaller circle.

«If you don't mind me asking,» Sugawara said. «What's the salt for?»

«Two circles,» Kyoutani said, holding up two fingers before he crouched down and smoothed out the salt.  
«One for us, one to keep the ghost in.»

Sugawara blinked.  
«So it doesn't, uh, bite us?» he asked.

«Yeah.»

«Fascinating,» Oikawa said, peering at the way Kyoutani was now pouring more salt and shaping it into a small pattern around the circle. «Just out of curiosity. If you get any of this wrong, you're pretty much doomed, right? So how do you, uh, learn this stuff?»

«Quickly.»

«Right,» Sugawara said.  
Taking that as a cue to leave Kentarou alone, he walked to the kitchen, dragging Oikawa with him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

That evening, after dinner, the five of them gathered into the living room.   
Kentarou took a seat first, looking very serious and mildly impatient.  
He'd taken his shirt off and had drawn more black symbols on himself with what looked like kohl pencil.  
They were glyphs, Sugawara was fairly certain. Ancient symbols depicting people and beasts, fire and stars, and some that were harder to figure out. Eternity, perhaps, death, darkness, life.  
They definitely weren't ancient greek, and when Kentarou knelt down, dressed in ripped jeans and adorned with dark, wild tattoos, he reminded Sugawara of some strange, post-apocalyptic shaman.  
He wondered where the boy was getting his spells from.

Yachi, shaking like a leaf, stepped over the black tape next. She was obviously nervous, but her face was set and determined when she knelt down and placed her hands firmly in her lap.  
Meanwhile, Kuroo was entirely too relaxed for this whole deal. He plopped onto the floor with a can of iced coffee and his trademark stupid grin.  
«Love the look,» he told Kentarou, and he gave him a thumbs up.

He was joined by Oikawa, who acted for all the world like he was going to a 'dead people summoning party'. He gave the impression that this was somehow entertainment, and not an ancient ritual that probably broke several laws of nature and/or morality. He sauntered into the summoning circle with a glass of wine before lowering himself down and sitting back.  
Sugawara was fairly certain that if there had been more room, Oikawa, or Kuroo, or both, would be lounging.

«So, uh, this is our final chance to call this whole thing off,» Sugawara tried, wavering at the edge of the black tape.

«Get in here, Suga,» Kuroo said seriously, «We're already way past that point.»

«Oh,» Yachi said, big eyes staring up at him in alarm, «if you don't want to-»

«It's fine,» Sugawara smiled. «It's fine.»  
Swallowing hard, he stepped over the black threshold and knelt down in between Oikawa and Kuroo.

 

«So,» Kuroo said. «You wanna walk us through this? Anything we need to know?»

Kyoutani shrugged.  
«I summon her, you talk to her. Try not to break anything.»

«Alright,» Kuroo said. «Let's do this.»

Kyoutani nodded.  
Around them, the black circle started glowing. It flickered with a deep purple energy and as it crackled, the room around them grew dark and fell away.  
Kentarou closed his eyes and in the distance, wolves started howling.  
Kuroo raised his eyebrows in alarm.  
Across from Sugawara, Yachi shivered.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Daichi walked through the halls of his house of many rooms, pondering if he should revisit a story he'd heard in his youth.  
It involved a lady falling in love with a tree, and as a child he'd always loved that story, even if as an adult he could see the practical issues with it.  
He pulled up the image of his aunt, sitting on the tatami floor, cup of tea in one hand, as she started:  
“A long, long time ago...”  
There was a sound, just on the edge of his hearing. A new one. An unusual one.  
He opened his eyes.

On the plane where he sat, the shadows were still whirling around him, a black tyfoon, whispering and singing, making the same sounds of sighs and wind that they had always done.  
But there was something else, getting louder.  
Tilting his head, he listened.  
The chain attached to his skull clinked softly, but when he concentrated, he could finally make it out.  
Howling. Like a pack of wolves hunting in the night.  
It seemed to come from above him, and as it grew louder, closer, it spread everywhere.

Then, suddenly, a sharp pain spread through Daichi's head, bright and searing, worse than anything he'd ever felt. As if someone was trying to pull his spine out of his body.  
Daichi screamed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The howl of a dozen wolves filled the air around Sugawara.  
Next to him, Oikawa had turned rigid, mouth open slightly in either baffled shock or amused wonderment.  
And then there was something else.

Yachi seemed the first to notice it, inching closer to Kentarou and almost ducking behind him in a panic.   
Then Sugawara heard it too. The song of shadows was emanating from the salt circle.  
It made sense, he told himself, since that was who they were trying to speak to, but it still felt very wrong to hear it here. The whispers of the monsters he fought every morning, were supposed to stay outside of any protective circles, not coming from within them. 

They seemed to grow in volume as the salt circle filled up with a grey mist, gradually becoming more opaque until, piercing the whispers and quickly overtaking them, Sugawara heard the scream.  
It was fast approaching and he looked up, alarmed, at Kentarou.  
The boxer frowned, but did not stop the ritual.

The scream became louder, until Sugawara was sure he could hear it right next to him, and then it stopped, just as suddenly as it had started, replaced by heavy breathing and a pained little moan.  
In the middle of the circle, the mist slowly faded to reveal a remarkably solid figure of a man.

He was wearing bulky mottled brown robes that may at one time have been white, and he had long, whispy black hair tied in a loose topknot.  
With a pained twitch, he looked up and his eyes grew wide with confusion.  
Sugawara blinked at the figure, and he blinked back, dark brown eyes taking him in before they moved to the rest of the crowd.

 

For a few moments it was quiet, everyone staring at everyone else in mute shock.  
«So. That doesn't look like Michimiya.» Oikawa said, breaking the silence.

«Nope,» Kuroo shrugged. «Not... bitey enough.»

«Kentarou, who, uh, is that?» Oikawa said, voice raising into a squeak.  
Kyoutani shrugged, a deep frown on his face.

«He looks like a shinto priest,» Sugawara said softly, and in the corner of his eye, he could see Yachi nod.  
With nothing else to do, he switched to Japanese. "Hey, uh, hi? Sir?"

The man startled.  
"Have I been released from my prison?"

His voice was deep and hoarse. Probably from all the screaming.  
“Uh,” Sugawara said. “Maybe?”

«What's he saying?» Kuroo muttered, leaning toward Yachi. «What's going on?»

 

“I have been trapped in the underworld for so long,” the man stammered. “What is this place? Who are you?”

“That's.…a very long story,” Sugawara said, rubbing the back of his neck.  
It was hard to understand him, this strange man. The way he talked was formal, practically archaic.  
“But we're, uh, gods?” Sugawara tried, “Sort of? And we were looking for someone. Short lady, long hair, shrine maiden outfit. Michimiya's her name. Don't know if you've seen her?"

The man was silent for a moment.  
“Yui-san... I… lost her years ago. Eons maybe. If you can find her, I could…”  
He reached out his hand and it stopped just on the circle, as if there was a glass barrier there.  
“Oh,” he said, “I am imprisoned still.”  
And his face dropped into deep sadness.

 

«Ok, well it's definitely not Amaterasu,» Oikawa said. «Put him back.»

«Are you crazy?» Sugawara hissed.

«Su-chan, you were the one who was worried about the zombie apocalypse,» Oikawa huffed. «He's not the one we need. I don't see what we would do with a creepy shinto ghost.»

«Well he seems like he might know Michimiya,» Kuroo hummed. «Maybe like one of the staff that got sucked into whatever happened back then. One of the twenty or whatever it was that died that day. We could ask him that.»

Kyoutani, peering at his latest summons, was silent.

«He's probably in shock, though,» Yachi said, peering at him. «He must have been stuck there forever. That's awful.»

«Well people are usually stuck in the underworld for a reason, Ya-chan,» Oikawa said gently, «On account of being dead.»

 

While the people around the circle started arguing, the man in the middle sat there, watching them with a small frown on his face.  
Seiza, Sugawara noted. A formal and rather uncomfortable way of kneeling on the ground.  
“What's your name,” he asked gently, pulling the man's attention away from a Oikawa, who was now arguing about zombies.

“Sawamura,” the man in the circle said.  
He sat like a statue, obviously frightened but not quite willing to let it show.

“I'm Sugawara,” Sugawara said, “Pleased to meet you.”  
The man nodded and smiled, a little awkwardly.  
And inside Sugawara's chest something burned, and bloomed. 

 

«This would never have happened if Kyouken knew what he was doing,» Oikawa huffed, next to him.  
This caused a growl in Kentarou, who grabbed his shirt and bared his teeth.

Sawamura looked on, alarmed.  
“It's a... weird situation. I get that,” Sugawara said in Japanese, ignoring the howls of his friend currently being wrestled into submission.

"Is, uh he alright?" Sawamura asked.

"Oh, he'll be fine," Sugawara waved, “could you tell me something?”  
Sawamura blinked at him, attentive.  
“You lived at the same time as Michimiya Yui, right?”

“I served her, yes,” Sawamura nodded, casting his eyes down. “I... I failed her.”

“And you've been down there ever since?”  
Sawamura nodded again, mutely.  
“W... what's it like?”

“Suga-san, you shouldn't ask him that,” Yachi whispered urgently, taking a small break from hovering over the two men still wrestling next to her.  
Kuroo had by now gotten up and was trying to pull them apart.

Sawamura took a breath and looked Sugawara straight in the eyes.  
“My prison is a spot, not much bigger than this,” he said, indicating the salt circle, “on an empty plane. There is nothing there but the wind, the dirt and the whispers of spirits.”  
Sugawara swallowed.  
He knew poker face. That was not poker face.  
There wasn't a bone in his body that did not believe Sawamura was telling the truth, and it made his stomach turn.  
“Sugawara-sama,” the man continued, “I do not know what it is that you want from me, but-”

 

For a moment, things moved in slow motion.  
Kuroo grabbed Kentarou's arm, trying to stop him from clobbering Oikawa.  
Oikawa, trying to dodge, shot back, lost his balance, and kicked out.  
His foot hit the glass of wine standing precariously between him and Sugawara.  
Above the struggle, Yachi cried out.  
Sugawara reached out to grab the glass, and his eyes crossed those of the man in the circle.  
He looked so sad, so hopeless, this man.  
Sugawara looked at the him, at the salt binding him, at the glass of wine toppling, and froze.

 

The next moment there was a crash, and a spill of white 'demi-sec' with delightful notes of a rose garden intermingled with underripe berries, hit the salt circle, melting part of it away.

«Oops,» Sugawara said.

«Oh my gods!» Yachi stammered.

«Did you just?» Oikawa huffed, freezing mid-fight. «Did you really just?»

Kuroo whistled. «We're so fucked.»

 

Sawamura, noticing the circle broken, gingerly reached out his arm again, and fell through, his hand landing on Sugawara's knee.  
"You are real?" he said, breathless, and he stared at Sugawara as if he was an angel sent from heaven. "You are real! Thank you!"

"Uhh, you're welcome?"  
Sugawara felt himself heat up.  
The guy's grip was like iron.

"You are so… warm," Sawamura said.

«Oh fuck no,» Oikawa muttered to the side. «Are you fucking serious?»  
He sat up and peeled the claws of a now very distracted Kentarou from his shirt.

But Sawamura had regained his balance, and he took Sugawara's hand, his fingers tracing the lines on Sugawara's skin as if it was the first time he ever felt human touch and Sugawara could only sit there and blush.  
"You are real," Sawamura kept muttering, hands roaming over the speechless man's arms, reaching up to his face.  
It was then that Sawamura startled, suddenly aware of where he was.  
"Oh, my apologies," he stammered, reaching back his hand.

"That's.…ok. That's fine," Sugawara whimpered, while behind him Kuroo burst into laughter.

 

Sugawara wanted to slap the asshole, but thought better of it.  
The man before him already looked embarrassed and confused enough.  
How did you even do propriety three hundred years ago?  
Sugawara pondered asking Yachi, when he became aware of Kentarou leaning closer.  
«Kentarou... please, I-»  
The guy ignored him and sniffed at Sawamura's hair, who seemed only mildly alarmed by this.  
Probably full on overloaded at this point.

Kentarou frowned.  
Then he poked Sawamura's cheek.  
He took a step back and folded his arms.  
«Not a ghost,» he said.

«Wh-what do you mean?» Sugawara asked.

«I mean he's not a ghost. Dude ain't dead.»

«Then where the hell did we pull him from?» Oikawa squawked. «Did you just grab someone from the past?»

Kentarou growled, shutting him up.  
«He comes from the underworld.»

«He's just not dead?» Kuroo said.  
Kentarou nodded, and Kuroo frowned. «Ok, how?»

«Fucked if I know,» Kentarou shrugged.

«What do you mean you don't know,» Oikawa started, «You're supposed to-»  
A hand was slapped across his face.

«Does that mean we can't put him back?» Kuroo said, struggling to keep Oikawa contained.

«Well your idiot friends broke the barrier,» Kentarou grunted. «If I open a portal now, we all get sucked in. And that's not gonna happen.»

With a huff, Oikawa escaped Kuroo's grip.  
«Come on,» he said, «surely we can wrestle one man back into-»

«No.»  
Sugawara's voice was loud and cold, sharp like a shard of glass as it shot across the circle, stunning everyone inside.  
«We're not putting him back,» he added calmly. «I don't know exactly what's going on but if Kentarou says he's not dead, then he obviously doesn't belong in the underworld.»  
He looked up, meeting Oikawa's frown with a small plea. «It doesn't seem like he'll hurt us. Sending him back now would be needless and cruel.»

Kentarou got up and dusted off his butt.  
«Well, he's your undead dude now. You figure it out.»  
And with that, he walked out of the circle.  
The soft glow around them faded, and the room came back into view, just as they had left it.

 

A deep silence descended, and Sugawara became aware that all eyes were on him, and that he had no idea what to do now.  
He'd made a snap decision, there hadn't been a lot of time to plan ahead.  
“Yachi?” he begged. “Say something?”

The girl startled and then, bless her, her instincts kicked in.  
“Oh! Would you like some tea, Sawamura-san?”

The man's eyes shone like diamonds.  
“I would… like that very much, young lady. Thank you.”

«I'll go find some, uh, green tea,» she said, bowing, before sprinting off to the kitchen.

«Oh I'm going to need something a lot stronger than green tea, darling,» Oikawa said, getting up.

Kuroo, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for a while, nodded and joined him.  
«Booze sounds like a great idea right now.»

 

 

And just like that, Sugawara was left alone with a man he'd just pulled out of the Underworld.  
He cleared his throat.  
“So, uh, welcome,” he said.  
The man smiled, and something in Sugawara's gut stirred, his stomach filling with bubbles.

"Sugawara-sama," he said, bowing down until the tip of his nose brushed against the floor,"My name is Sawamura Daichi. My life and service are yours."

“W-what?”

“You released me,” Sawamura said, undeterred. “I am forever in your debt.”

“That's... not. Oh boy.”  
He should have seen this one coming, he really should have.  
Mercifully, Yachi chose that moment to walk back in with a tray of tea and cups.  
"Yachi!” Sugawara said, relieved.  
“This is, uh, Yachi. Hitoka," he pointed, happy to get some distraction from the heat crawling through his gut.

Yachi set the tray down and handed Sawamura a cup. "Here you go!"

"Thank you, Yachi-sama," Sawamura said, bowing.

Yachi stilled for a second, and then a buzz ran through her and she became bright pink.  
"That's, uh. You don't have to call me that," she said.

Sawamura frowned. "Are you not gods?"

"Uh... oh dear." She looked down. "Sort of? But not... Like that? You don't need to treat me like royalty, really. Please, you must be thirsty."  
She grabbed her own cup and started sipping it, hiding her face

"Cheers to that," Sugawara said, and he took a scalding gulp.  
From the corner of his eye, he could see Sawamura carefully lift his cup, like it was made of the most fragile china, and take in the steam.  
He was fairly sure there were tears. He decided not to ask

 

Daichi breathed in the warm, fragrant scent of green tea and a rush of memories came back to him, more vivid than he'd been able to conjure before. Of friends, of ceremonies, of evenings spent with his family.  
It made his heart swell with a strange mixture of joy and melancholy.  
He would be quite content if he could sit here and take in this smell for hours, a true gift from the gods. But he didn't want to offend his hosts, so he slowly took a sip.

The liquid, as it passed Daichi's lips, was slightly too hot, but in another way it was just right.  
It scalded away eons of drought and set fire to his senses.  
Where it passed, it seemed to bring life.  
From the steam in his nose to the heat on his tongue, from the tingling in the top of his mouth and down his throat to his chest. It was raindrops in the desert, forcing blooms out of dead ground.  
It opened tissues that had long since been shut down and it felt like a hard slap to the face.  
It _hurt_.  
It was amazing.  
Daichi was certain that it was the best tea he'd ever had.

The two gods, he noticed, were peering, almost nervously, over their cup.  
He lowered his.  
"Thank you," he said again.  
There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but in this moment, none of them felt more appropriate than this.  
He had long since given up trying to think of his release, and back when he still imagined it, it had never looked anything like this.

“Oh, you're welcome,” the young goddess said, and Daichi couldn't help but notice that she was blushing. "It was the least we could do."  
She stilled again, and sipped her tea, looking away, as Sugawara-sama did.

 

Daichi had so many questions, it felt like his head was going to burst.  
The room, with its tatami and wood, felt somewhat normal, but the people in it did not.  
Why were they here, why had they chosen to release him, why now, who even were they, what did they want him to do?  
But somehow, it felt like it was not his place to ask. They seemed a little ill at ease, these gods.  
Daichi really wished he knew how he was supposed to act around them. He hoped that someone, somewhere, would tell him soon.  
Until then he was content to sit and sip tea.

 

Sugawara closed his eyes and tried to will the storm going off in his head to lay down.  
What was even the protocol on this stuff?  
The guy was probably in psychological shock, right?  
He took another hot gulp and glanced at Sawamura, who was calmly smiling at his tea.  
The dude seemed fine, rally. Surprisingly so.  
Leave it to their lot to find some kind of zen master to drag out of hell.  
But still, it was probably a good idea to let him adjust a little, before they started questioning him about the most traumatizing event in his life.

 

«It has been decided that we're getting more food,» Oikawa announced, walking out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine.  
He appeared to have foregone wine glasses altogether, and was now just chugging straight from the bottle.

«Turns out, summoning makes you hungry,» Kuroo grinned next to him.

«What do you guys want?» Oikawa said.

«I thought we were doing curry?» Kuroo asked. «I believe it's traditional in situations like this.»

«I mean we could,» Oikawa said, «but that's gonna be too much for our newest guest, right? Did they even have spices back then?»  
He put the wine bottle to his mouth.

«How am i supposed to know,» Kuroo said, and he slumped against the wall.

«Ok, let's just order sushi,» Oikawa said, not waiting for anyone else's input. «I saw a flyer on the board in the kitchen. Ya-chan? You call.»

Yachi shot up, nearly dropping her cup.  
«M..me?»

«I don't speak Japanese Ya-chan. You call. Get eel sushi. I'll pay,» Oikawa drawled.

«What are you, made of money,» Kuroo asked offhandedly.

«Like I said, I'm not poor like you lot,"Oikawa said, and he poked out his tongue, leading Yachi into the kitchen.

«Well in that case I'm having yellowfin tuna!» Kuroo shouted after them.  
  


He strolled across the room and crouched down in front of the priest, grinning at him.  
The priest leaned back a little, unnerved.  
«How's he doing?» Kuroo asked.

«Surprisingly calm,» Sugawara muttered, sipping tea. «Though it would probably help if you stopped creeping him out, mister Cheshire grin.»

«Three hundred years,» Kuroo said, getting back up. «You think he stayed up to date? Does he know about computers? World War Two?»

«I doubt it, Kuroo,» Sugawara sighed. «His way of speaking is fairly archaic.»

Kuroo let out a bark of a laugh, which again startled Sawamura.  
«He's gonna have a heart attack once he finds out we can fly airplanes now.»

«That... might be an issue, yes,» Sugawara conceded.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Daichi sat at a low table surrounded by gods and ate small morsels of rice.  
They had produced a feast, seemingly out of nowhere.  
They were also quite animated, speaking to each other in a language he did not recognize, but it was... nice, being here.  
It felt strange, after so long, to be among friendly company again, even if he didn't understand them.  
His heart kept trying to burst out of his chest, and parts of him wanted to scream, but he should, he told himself, contain it.  
They were gods, after all.

Even if they were being extremely informal.  
They certainly didn't act like he would have imagined gods to be.  
They wore strange clothes and they had strange mannerisms.  
Especially the man named Oikawa seemed... rather theatrical. He reminded Daichi of a particularly flamboyant kabuki actor, rather than a god.  
Meanwhile the man next to him, with the wild black hair, Kuroo-sama, had a permanent mischievous smile plastered on his face. Sawamura wondered briefly if he was some trickster god. A nine tailed fox perhaps.  
He would have to be very cautious around him.  
The other two were a much more comfortable presence. Not just because they spoke to him in a weird dialect of his own tongue, but also because they were kind. They reminded him, in a way, of Yui. They carried a warmth and a friendliness that had been part and parcel of her, as well.  
The man called Sugawara was, even now, eyeing him worriedly.

 

"You ok?" Sugawara said as he leaned closer. "Don't hesitate to take more if you want. I'm guessing you're proably hungry. But don't overdo it. People coming out of starvation tend to get sick if they try to eat too fast. That is… assuming you were starving."

"Thank you, Sugawara-sama," Daichi said, and the other man cringed a little. "But I don't think… starvation is the term for it. I wasn't in any particular pain."

"Hmm, yeah, that's good to hear at least. Must be some kind of stasis." Sugawara said, nodding thoughtfully to himself.

"S-stasis?"

"Uhh… like your body shut down? Like a tree in winter, how they don't grow or do much, but they just sort of wait for spring."

Daichi nodded. "Yes, Sugawara-sama. You are very wise."

Sugawara smiled a small smile and rubbed the back of his neck.  
"Heh. Uh, thanks. I guess"

This made the young woman chuckle. She noticed she made a noise and immediately slapped her hand in front of her face.  
"Sorry."

 

 

«So what do we do with him now?» Oikawa said, picking a piece of eel-topped sushi out of the big styrofoam box on the table. «We just randomly have a not-dead guy on our hands.»

«Tooru, he's _Right There,»_ Kuroo hissed.

«What, like he speaks ancient greek,» Oikawa pouted. «I say we actually use him for what we got him for.»

«Excuse me?» Sugawara said, raising an eyebrow.

«Yui,» Oikawa explained. «They were friends, right? Make him tell us what happened.»

Sugawara nodded.  
«Yes. But not now.»  
He held up his hand when Oikawa started to protest.  
«The guy just got here, from _hell._ He's probably-»

«He doesn't look like he's in any particular shock, Suga,» Kuroo smirked.

«I don't want to overload him,» Sugawara grumbled. «Just because he looks calm doesn't mean there's not a whole bunch of stuff going on inside.»

«Fine, fine.» Oikawa said, rolling his eyes. «You're the professional.»

 

He sat back from the table and stretched.  
«I'm taking a shower,» he added. «Why don't I show our guest? Pretty sure Suga here won't be able to handle that right now.»  
Kuroo snorted in a really rather ugly way.

«What's that supposed to mean?» Sugawara frowned.

«Nothing, nothing,» Oikawa smiled. «Ya-chan explain it to him?»

“Oh, uh…" the girl blinked. "Sawamura-san? Oikawa-san is going to show you to the bathroom."

"The bath?" Sawamura blinked.

"Yes. We figure you would like to, uh, freshen up.”

"Of course, yes." Daichi nodded and stood up, a little unsteadily. Then he bowed to Oikawa.  
"I will follow your lead, Oikawa-sama."

«Ohh I could get used to this,» Oikawa smirked. «This way!»  
And they disappeared into the hallway.

 

Sugawara closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.

«So I never would have taken you for the impulsive kind, Kouchi,» Kuroo said gently, taking a sip from his beer.

Sugawara sighed. «I'm sorry.»  
Kuroo tilted his head.  
«Ok, I'm not really that sorry,» Sugawara said. «I acted rashly, yes, and I was very.... anxious about the whole summoning business. And I was right, because things definitely didn't go as planned, but you're never gonna convince me that that man deserved to go back to hell. We did the right thing.»

Yachi nodded. «I do feel bad for him,» she said softly.

«And he doesn't look like he's going to strike us down with lightning or anything,» Sugawara added.

«The word you're looking for is zombie-ism,» Kuroo said helpfully.

«Or... zombie-ism,» Sugawara grunted.  
«And ok, part of this is my fault, though part of it is definitely Oikawa's fault too. And, and ok, I have no idea how we're going to handle him being here, or what we do now, but I don't regret getting him out,» he said, more to himself than anything.

With a hum, Kuroo drained his beer.  
«Whelp, whatever it is, we'll figure it out tomorrow. For now, I'm going to shower and see what Oikawa is doing to our poor priest.»

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Oikawa came back into the living room, he was wearing track pants, an alien themed t-shirt and a fluffy towel on his head.  
«I've done recon,» he said, plopping down on the couch next to Sugawara. «And our boy is _built_.»

«Oh for fuck's sake, Oikawa.»

«Also, he bleeds,» Oikawa added.

«Wait, what?»  
Sugawara sat up, alarmed.

«Yeah, I think we need your nurse skills here.»

 

 

The bath, it seemed, had opened up an old wound.  
In fact, now that Sawamura was sitting on a chair in the stark fluorescent light of the kitchen, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, it became clear to Sugawara that he had a _lot_ of wounds.

There was a deep gash that ran across his right shoulder and that Sugawara had managed to stitch closed as best as he could.  
But there were also shallower cuts on the man's back and arms, and a big bruise on his side.  
When Sugawara examined his hands, rough and calloused, he found a bunch of small scars there, as well.  
Life for priests 300 years ago seemed a lot more violent than he remembered learning in school.

“So, this should stop the bleeding,” he said, giving Sawamura a reassuring smile.  
“And at least this means you're definitely, uh, alive.”  
Sawamura nodded slowly.  
“If you don't mind, I'd just like to give you a bit of a check-up. To, uh, see if there's anything else that might... give issues.”

“Of course, Sugawara-sama.”

 

Kuroo watched them, leaning against the doorstile.  
«Should we tell them,»he murmured.

«Well, on the one hand, this is super funny and I want it to last,» Oikawa next to him, said lowly. «But I also want to see Su-chan's face when we tell him.»

«Tell him what?» Yachi asked.  
She'd found a guest yukata somewhere and was carrying it across the living room.

«I mean, look at them,» Kuroo said.

 

Sugawara was examining their guest.  
Taking his pulse, doing quick checks of eye response time, disinfecting cuts and double-checking the rather unsettlingly large amount of bruises on the guy.  
Nurse stuff.  
Only he was adorably pink the entire time. As was his patient.  
Daichi blinked confusedly, and with mild amusement, at Sugawara's ministrations, while Sugawara calmly explained what he was doing, only his voice kept breaking and he had to stop at least once to suppress a silly giggle.  
He wasn't acting nearly as professional as he thought he was, Kuroo noted.

Yachi watched them for a moment.  
«I think it's best if they find out for themselves,» she said with a wise nod. «Could you give him this when they're done? I'll use the bathroom now that it's empty.»  
She dropped the parcel in Kuroo's arms and walked off, smiling to herself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins...  
> I hope you're enjoying it so far. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya, and welcome to what is technically Book 2 in the Godbook series.  
> Since I know some of you are just here for the DaiSuga, I tried to make it so you can just jump in.  
> If you want the long version of the recap I gave, you can read 'My Girlfriend is a Goddess?!'.


End file.
